Moreover, the scaled storage manager allows us to transparently use scaled 2-byte integers if we choose to. The main danger comes about because our Measurement-Equation based processing is inherently for all polarizations at once. The software must be able to store on disk only those polarizations which are required, not insist on always writing 4-polarization images.
Similar arguments occur for visibility data.
These sorts of problems should be solvable by using and creating appropriate storage managers. We certainly can't afford an integral factor bloat in the raw data size.