After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing over the pros and cons of various designs- I have settled on the following as the first trial.
The plan is to get a body blank made of inexpensive low-ish grade wood and test out the before and after effects of the chambering, looking specifically at inherent acoustic amplification, weight relief and body balance.
A lot of this is theoretical guesswork at best and at worst experimentation of the "duhhh, I dunno" school, but results should be intriguing.