Todd, the industry pros who design car interiors have a whole series of range-of-motion limits, based on long experience. There are numerical ranges for seat back rake, arm reach, knee angle, neck angle and many other "comfort figures."
For a pedal operated by pivoting your foot toe-up, toe-down while seated, the extreme comfort range is from vertical to 40 degrees forward. In my experience, that's a generous range -- at either extreme, I get calf cramps. Bensen specified this range for his gyros' pedals. He was no fool.
So it's OK if your pedal goes "only" to vertical, as long as you've got 35-40 deg forward at the other extreme.