You can see it better with the naked eye, but it is still pretty crappy to try and drive with them alone. Some guys have better eye sight than others. During Desert Storm we always drove with NVG's on. Back at Ft. Campbell we didn't always get issued all the NVG's because of reliablity, accountability, and maintenance issues.
We used to break them out because we were driving with PVS-5 NVG's which were crappy in retrospect but cool at the time. We needed the extra light.
Wearing PVS-7's we don't need the extra light, but it still helps.
The plastic I always saw was white rather than clear. You could in the future just cut it out from the rear, and replace it with clear plexiglas with clear silicone to seal it in.