Well, for anyone who is interested, I figured out how to remove the large dash panel. Just follow these steps, and you can do it too. Hopefully this will cut down the time it takes to remove the dash for others, since it took me about 1.5 hours to figure out. All you will need is ratchet set, and if I remember correctly, I think a 10mm socket will do the trick.

First, you need to find the circular clips on either side of the gauge cluster. They are pretty easy to take out, all you need is a very small blade/screwdriver. Just insert the blade in the crack and pop it off. That will expose a bolt, which is easily removed. Remove both bolts on driver and passenger sides.

Second, you need to take off the panel that is to the left of the steering wheel, the one the contacts the driver side door when it is closed. That panel comes off pretty easy, all you have to is get a grip on it and pull. Once that panel is off, you can see that a bolt is exposed that holds on the panel underneath the steering column. Remove that bolt, as well as the two bolts just above the pedals, and you will be able to pull off that panel. Once you have that panel off, you will see 5 bolts that have to be taken out so you can remove the dash panel above the steering column. Again, find a good spot to grab and pull.

Now comes the tricky part. It will seem like you won't be able to remove that panel, and if you look under the little vent on the far left side of the dash, you will see why. If you have a flashlight (I had to do this all in a dark parking lot, which made the whole process much more difficult, but at least I was already using a flashlight) shine it in that vent, and you will see another bolt, the same as the ones you have already removed. It took me quite a while to figure this one out. After pulling as hard as I felt was safe, I realized that I should not try to pull this one off, there must be a way to remove that bolt. It dawned on me that if I took off the A pillar, I might be able to access that bolt. Sure enough, if you remove the A pillar, you will have easy access to that bolt. Now here's the kicker. If you do that on both A pillars, you will realize that you spent the last hour and 20 minutes doing completely unnecessary work, since the only things holding down that dash piece are the two bolts covered by the A pillars and the two bolts that are underneath the circular clips to the left and right of the cluster gauge (the ones you already removed). Once you have those four bolts out, all you have to do is pull up on the vents, and the whole thing should come out pretty easily.

All told the whole process should take about 10 minutes, unless you follow my instructions, in which case it will take about an hour and half. Maybe less if you do it in daylight. I would have taken/posted pics of the process, but it was about midnight when I got done, and I was more than a little pissed at myself for wasting so much time.