I have this set up and working fine...
I have the panels within the tabs arranged identically when using columns...
You have another option, to use the _grpx param instead of the colx... that way the panels do not have to be identical across tabs... you can have 2 charts/tables on row1 in one tab and 1 or 3 on the other tab working nicely...
I still have some issues with panel titles but found i could use generic titles to describe all the modules within the panels...
Requires some playing around but works great