I've found my questions answered after all. I bet I could make the "downstairs" habitable for the shorter kids and we could all live in there if I can just find a way to not have as much gear in place. I'll just have to post pics once I get my Anvil JKU since the most prolific picture takers are driving white Jeeps.
This is a legitimate strategy, but not without pitfalls. For a while after first building my pop-top van, we used the "park and disgorge" strategy. Everybody sleeps in the van (mom and daughter on lower bunk, me in the pop-top), but in the early days, this meant that upon setting up camp, a lot of stuff got moved OUT of the van in order to setup the sleep quarters. Tables, chairs, and the odd bit of recovery gear, at least. Having less gear, or at least smaller-packing gear is one partial solution to the problem.
However, what made "park-and-disgorge" worse from my perspective was that in addition to all the stuff that had to go out, other stuff had to be moved or "setup". Carseat de-installed, porta-potti moved, seat swiveled, potti moved again, bed pulled down, mattress rolled out, etc. etc. The carseat is non-negotiable for a little while longer, but I have been working to eliminate as many of those other steps as possible. The net effect was that in the early days, striking camp could take as much as a couple of HOURS of solo work (while mom kept the toddler busy). As I refine the build and the kid gets older, we're down to about 1/2 hour now. (2 people working). My goal is to make that a 1-man 1/2 hour or 2-person 15-minute job. Again, I'm finding solutions where possible with less gear, smaller gear, or in some cases actually bigger gear that isn't quite so finicky or time consuming to fold/stow.
The specifics of my load out and setup are less important than this: For any storage/sleeping system, remember the limitations of storage volume versus setup time and teardown time, and weigh it against your needs. I don't normally want one of those largish XP-campers or campers-on-a-truck-chassis systems, but every time I'm packing up and stowing bedding, chairs, etc. and in a hurry to leave for something important, I sort of wish I had a camper that didn't require quite so much "nesting" and packing. We often move frequently to see lots of places. I'd probably care less about some extra setup/teardown/re-packing time if we tended to stay put.
