Background information: The system - BC; the music - Scottish and Irish trad; the experience - half a century of playing the music but just six months on the box.
The main thing I have learned from perusal of Melnet is that there is no "one system to rule them all", just a choice of compromises. But after six months I am planning ahead for the day when I can get a box set up to suit my own personal preferences (or maybe foibles), so I'm starting to think about the bass side.
My current box has the traditional bass layout which is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. But that's fine for now; my personal preference is to use somewhere between very little and no bass in my playing. But there are times when I could use a drone, and it seems to me that the essential thing for that is to have every main note on the push and pull - and from that, preferably on the same button.
As for chords, they are not something I am likely to want to use, even without the thirds, so I was wondering whether anyone had tried an eight button layout which just has the single notes A-G on push and pull and leaves one button spare for something unlikely such as the day I learn a tune in Bb.
A search of the forum turned up a comment from george garside about ten years ago suggesting that he might try such a thing - did you ever?