Well, I'm still glad I'm making the switch, if I waited until I had the money for batteries I would have lost out on a solar incentive and a tax write off. And it would have been a while. Plus two less batteries won't kill me I guess. Try to use less at night. I hadn't thought of the positive offset of a more efficient system. It won't make up the capacity loss, but at least I can delude myself into thinking it's helping.
They are going to be better charged then in the past and that may help as well.
Another thing I might consider is taking the batteries out of my 36V golf cart and adding them to the mix. The golf batts are newer but have been beat on more. Guess I'd need to test 'em to make sure that comes out as a net gain. Then I'd only have to get 6 new batts.
However, I'm guessing that in reality I will cull the two weakest and then beat on them somewhere while I beat on the others with my new system. Milk as much as I can out of them while saving pennies for more.
Thanks for all the opinions.
Jonathan