steveh - A great question! A quick answer is simply size. A dread (and even an OM) now cause pain in my right shoulder, and a 14 fret neck causes pain in my left wrist. I've moved to smaller 12 fret guitars for those reasons alone.
While I missed the deep bass that comes from a dread, I discovered that I prefer the more focused sound that seems to come out of the smaller 12 frets. So the ideal guitar for me would be a combination of the two. That's no easy feat, it seems. Goodall and Froggy pull that off with their "parlors". I'm sure bracing and top thicknessing help with moving air, but I believe a lot of it comes from the extra body length in their designs. It creates more surface area and more internal volume.
Somogyi has written pretty extensively about "coupling" the top and back to move air better (which is how you get bass, as you point out). I suspect Jason Kostal is doing something along these lines with his 00.
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