Dave, thanks so much. I believe you have just provided the definitive answer. This explains how to do everything exactly the way I am comfortble with. I can make full backups and have all the drives retain their current names (except during brief transitional periods).
Now, as soon as you figure out the workaround for Apple's Jaguar bug that prevents saving of configurations, I'll not only have the ability for regular backups but I'll also be able to adopt your recommended scheme of maintaining a sandbox and booting from it.
