Preferred UDS Charcoal Basket?

So far, I've found a drum and have taken the Norco approach and have the grates at 1.75" and 8" from the top. I'm also borrowing the 2" aluminum strip idea to adopt a 22.5" Weber lid.

I thought I had the charcoal basket all figured out but now I'm probably making it much more complicated than it needs to be. After a ton of research, I'm waffling and can't seem to settle on the dimensions.

I'm locked and loaded on supplies, with two 17" Weber charcoal grates, the expanded metal, a 16" perforated pizza pan for a diffuser plus an 18" ash pan. Originally, I was planning on a 17" x 8" basket. The width would help disperse heat evenly, it'd have plenty of capacity and be 15" from the lower food grate. Piece of cake.

But then I got to thinking that the edge of the basket might be too close to the edge of the ash pan. I saw the posts about larger baskets being potential overkill and I'd also planned to have another rack for the diffuser roughly 3" above the top of the basket. So that got me second guessing before I fire up the jigsaw...

Now I'm leaning towards something like 15" x 10" or 15" x 12". Also, with the 15" diameter or so, I'd have a little extra room on the sides of the ash pan and I could potentially lay the ash pan on top of the basket as others have done to avoid having to drill more holes into the drum.

So what have you used and what were the burn times like? Wider and shorter? Smaller and taller? Did you have to reload fuel at all with the diffuser? I think I've seen all the basket variations but no real consensus. I've traditionally cooked with Ozark Oak lump and would like to stick with that for the UDS, though I could mix in some TJ's briquettes for stability.

Thx in advance.

Thanks for the input. I'd be going the weld-free route for sure and have a smaller ~13" x 5" basket I built for my "UDS-ified" ECB where I did the 90 degree orientation and that's worked well. The dimensions from coach were similar to what I was envisioning and yeah, the 18" ash pan would be bolted on to the bottom of my 3" bolts. I have a gas grill so I'd primarily be using the drum for it's primary purpose.

The BPS basket checks in at 13 and 3/8" x 7.5" so 15" x 9" or 15 x 8" should be more than enough. Those basket handles look cool though. I haven't quite figure out yet what I intend to do for a handle. I've seen the coat hanger, the chains, etc. I figured I'd get the basket built first.