I don't think it's possible to get good acoustic tone out of a 12" - 14" archtop. I think it would be very honky, middy, and lack bass response. I think it would be fine as a practice guitar, but in that case there are a lot of practice travel guitars. If you are looking at an electric archtop, then the archtop part is just style anyway, and I am sure you could come up with something that sounded great electrically, etc, but wouldn't it be just a kind of chambered out Les Paul at that point? There is the Anderson Little Archie, but again it's really just a smallish electric-biased archtop. Lots of people, me included, make full size guitars with de-mountable necks where you could take the neck off with one screw in a minute, put it back on likewise, and tune it up - and the guitar would fit in a carry-on bag. Ken Parker touts that ability of his archtops.
Just thoughts for conversation... 
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Brian Evans
Around 15 archtops, electrics, resonators, a lap steel, a uke, a mandolin, some I made, some I bought, some kinda showed up and wouldn't leave. Tatamagouche Nova Scotia.
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