Thanks. This would be for existing construction. The more I thought I about it, the more I realized what you said: the extra panel really doesn't help.
I would do the installation myself along with some family that are licensed electricians.
I'm looking for something to run our entire house and the entire system needs to be very easy to operate, all while not going overboard on generator size. Though I could certainly handle manual switches/lockouts my wife would have zero interest in dealing with such things...let alone starting a gennie. So I'm going to end up getting an automatic universal transfer switch and a generator that fires up automatically too. The house is mostly run on natural gas, with only a few electric appliances: A/C, refrigerator, deep freezer, microwave, dish washer, clothes washer. We also have to run our 2 sumps, the well pump and the septic with an aerator. I'd guess if I want to run every single thing in the house, I'm probably looking at a 15-17kw unit.