Richwost

I am most intrigued by your post Carl.  
While I fully admit to being a beginner in this field, I cannot grasp what you are saying.  Strangely, I am quite independantly looking at a double inverter system myself and I am going to post something soon under the title of "Double Trouble".  I don't want to go into that now, but how would you do away with the PV - inverter - charge regulator -  battery - inverter setup, while still having a solar system and a grid tied inverter?
There are so many people out there who are disappointed with the result of their investment into solar, and I don't want to become yet another one.  This forum is incredible and there is a lot of knowledge sharing and learning going on.  But your post had me beat.  What exactly would you do if you could start all over again?  I would be very interested to know - and I am sure that many others would too.
I am wanting to use solar PV to generate hot water, but I accept your point on efficiencies.  I have another reason for doing it which involves aesthetics to some extent and also some other logic.  I will go into it under Double Trouble.