Dean,
very true regarding the trade offs. We ususally buy things sight unseen and never have buyers remorse that way. To many people buy things and keep looking and then are mad at themselves. We own two houses one in California and one in Tennessee, bought them sight unseen and always been happy with both, all vehicles and trailers have been the same way. For some reason we decided to look this time and learned some but basically just got more confused. One thing we learned though is that the casita floor plans are not to scale, especially the freedom model. The Chairs take 6-7" more room than the floor plan indicates. We would have ordered that, and probably been happy not knowing the SD was more open in the walkway.
Oliver trailer is made a couple hours from our house in TN, a little mystical, but may be early for them. Could not get in touch, and web site other than floor plans offer few pictures. Prior to opening they bought all three models of Casitas, I guess to not reinvent the wheel in the manufacture process, which is I guess good business. I would have like to have seen one face to face.---- two turn offs on the specs the Interior height is lacking 2" at 6'1", probably due to the double wall. The other is the aluminum frame, if not well designed is just as heavy as steel, and if not well designed not as durable. Once tweaked always tweaked also. The extendable tongue is also of little use for us. Using unlike metals in construction will be interesting to see the long term effects if electrolysis is a factor. I have never seen a firm price on those things..... I had an aluminum emergency once and had great difficulty finding someone willing repair it, also finding someone qualified, at that time most aluminum welding was strictly large fabrication firms, finally found one and looked sad enough they did it for me. They also charged me nothing, and refused any gift, as they wanted no liability for their kind gesture.
Let me know if you have photos or facts on that unit, and how your search goes. As you have indicated "there is no perfect trailer" very true. The mail came and I commited to the purchase of the casita by sending the purchase order and check. I appreciate all of the quick input, and will become one of the crowd again. The pick up date is suppose to be Jan 8th there abouts.
Thanks again
Randy