Thanks to both of you.
I originally thought solution 2 would be the way to go, and have proceeded in that direction ... but the more I look at the result the more I am getting convinced that this wasn't the right approach to deal with the issue.
So, I am still open for solution 1. But will try yet another solution, inspired by the reply from WickedP.
I intentionally didn't include a solution where I would create iCustomGui / GeUserArea for each separate gadget. As I thought this would result in drag and drop to only work when hovered over the separate gadgets, and failing when mouse would hover over the space between these gadgets.
But using a global drag and drop function on the dialog itself (instead of all separate gadgets) will actually provide for a complete solution.
EDIT:
Set the state of this post to "Solved".
In the end I went for a complete different solution. Not using any GeUserArea at all. As such, I could simply position and use EditText the way it was intended.