"I think the ability to equalize is an important threshold"
But not by having tons of solar. You only need to equalize every month or two.
Before you can equalize you have to get to full. That means no loads just solar or at least have pos net amps to get there. Takes a bit of arranging while camping and running loads.
So you have to arrange no-load on one set of batts and use the other--the split- bank trick. But this does not require a lot of solar per bank size, just some "arranging," and then only every month or so.
So really, you don't need nearly so much solar to get by as you would if equalizing were the make or break.
