I have about 40 local SM cold water dives and 10 more in North FL (which was much easier in part due to bare hands. Like I said, I have both a Razor and a Hollis SMS100. I used the Hollis last night with 2 stages for practice. Was also the first time in salt water. Was actually ok despite having some gear failures - one of my lower stage clips was stuck and I ripped a mouthpiece off a stage reg.
The biggest problem was leaving the stage tanks in fairly deep water because I decided to walk my main SM tanks (hp100s) in and put them on standing in the water, then attach the 80 stages. I brought a leash and clipped the 2 al80s together and there wasn't much surge to bang them around. I was fortunately able to stand and didn't lose anything in the dark. I have found having butterfly clips for the tank neck clips is a huge help for gearing up while standing. I use standard boltsnaps on the lower butt end clips.
But why? I only wanted to know what your goals were. I was curious about what rig or system you might choose based on what those dives were. I probably have about 150 dives on the island, Port Hardy, Nanaimo, Saanich, Gulf Islands, and some of the divable caves. Sidemount is (or would have been) perfect for some of these and sucks for others.
I have dove from rickety canoes, slippery round cobbles beaches and from smaller boats using bm and stages.... never again!
As I never dive solo me and my buddy are always able to help with each other's tanks while one goes to lay em on the beach or em toss up on the boat. Granted they can be a real pain in choppy conditions but with butterfly snaps on all the tanks and by clipping the necks to the shoulder D rings I can handle most conditions.