If the arm is going to be able to drop straight down, the other two arms need to be a bit longer. More or less the arms get into the 1X rod spacing rather than 2/3 spacing vicinity. That either costs you build height or makes the machine taller. To be same / same I think you need to compare equal build heights.
The same is true of the straight line vs offset arms. Loosing ~ 2" of build diameter (or worse radius) is a pretty substantial hit to the design. Things then get a bit bigger X and Y to be back where you started.
With inline arms, there's still the "kink" in the arm at the drive shaft. You loose some of the math, but you still are not back to simple stuff. I don't think you are back to the "built into Marlin" math. I haven't dug into it, so I may be wrong there.
The same is true of the straight line vs offset arms. Loosing ~ 2" of build diameter (or worse radius) is a pretty substantial hit to the design. Things then get a bit bigger X and Y to be back where you started.
With inline arms, there's still the "kink" in the arm at the drive shaft. You loose some of the math, but you still are not back to simple stuff. I don't think you are back to the "built into Marlin" math. I haven't dug into it, so I may be wrong there.