This thing about the LM proposal only being 100ish pages long, when other proposals for other projects contained thousands...

I've just read Tom Kelly's Moon Lander and it specifically states that the proposal, without apendices etc, was limited to 100 pages by NASA. It even states that during the final printing, it was found to be half a page too long and Kelly and a colleage went through the whole thing taking out singlw phrases and sentences to bring the document in under the hundred page limit. All the proposals for Landers by all the companies asked to sumbit were under 100 pages. That's what NASA wanted.

DC-X craters...

Let me get this straight. The DC-X has five engines, each of which produces much more thrust than the LM DPS at landing. The DC-X keeps it's five engines firing until it has actually landed, unlike the LM which fell unpowered the last eight feet. The DC-X is very tall and slim, liable to topple, with retractable legs whereas the LM was short and fat, with legs that were extended once and verified locked in place before a landing was attempted, to enable it to be 'dropped' onto the surface quite safely. Even though the DC-X is set up to be more likely to produce craters and is operating to make craters more likely, it only produces craters two feet wide and one foot deep. This argument should make it less likely for a crater to be observed under the LM, not more likely.