Are these panties really high enough?

I tried making underwear once before, and it didn't seem worth the effort (time + money) but was pretty fun. This time I made high-waisted panties since those are more difficult to purchase (and by making them I can use whatever cute fabric patterns I want). I wanted to make them out of lace for that pin-up look, and tried to match the front panel fabrics to lace I already had around.

I was inspired by one of my friends who mentioned buying a cheap pair of plain high-waisted undies to use as a pattern for some pin-up styled ones. This seemed like a good idea, so I also bought a pair. I then remembered some posts on Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing about making high-waisted panties, so I looked those up for reference. I like the pattern Gertie uses more than my sample panties, but it wasn't available when I made these.

This is the pattern I got from tracing my sample panties:

They didn't have a separate center back panel like the ones on Gertie's blog. I was indifferent to this feature so I tried the pattern as-is first. The result was the panties on the left in the photos below. The original panties were a thick spandex meant to compress you a bit, and in the thinner knit I used for my mock-ups I had some unflattering bagginess in the back. Taking in just the back seam wasn't working very well, so I moved on and tried the style with a back panel.

Here's the final pattern. I free-handed a line on the first version of the back, straightened the back seam, and took some width out on the sides of the back panel. You can see in the above photos how this made the panties more of an hourglass shape.

Here's everything cut out. This front panel is a cotton knit. All the lace is stretch lace, which was a bit of a pain to sew - my machines kept chewing it up since it's so flimsy.

I used coordinating lingerie elastic on the legs and waist.

I constructed everything using my serger except for the edging elastic which I top-stitched with a zig-zag. This cupcake fabric is a woven cut on the bias as suggested in Gertie's post. The black/pink pair in the first photos has a spandex panel.

I was going to add worn photos because it's pretty hard to tell what these look like without a person in them, but I can't seem to get myself to do it. So, unfortunately, no photos.