I have been looking at Mike's
pics of his equipment and couldn't help but notice the cables everywhere. A while ago I had the same problem and something always seemed to go wrong during the session. I gave it some thought, and when I tried the new setup, I had my first night of imaging when absolutely nothing went wrong and everything worked as it should.
The basic trick is to run all the wires to where the Dec portion of the mount joins the RA portion. Make a loop here, and fix the two ends, one to the Dec and one to the RA axis. The loop should be long enough so that it will not stretch to the limit in any direction. Test this by moving the mount around to see if there is enough slack. I then run all the cables for the computer through some washing machine hose. The others run straight down to the battery box.
Another useful trick is to stick velcro strips on the tripod legs at strategic places and also on the back of things like hand paddles, remote camera controller etc, so you just plonk it on the mount wherever convenient
The pics should make things clear.
Taking the shoulder strap off your DSLR also gives you one less thing to worry about.
Geoff