Crest Passive Splitter - Which Snake Cable?

[jabney]

I have two Crest XRM mixers and each has the ability to "pass-through" the microphone signal while allowing the option of lifting pin 1. I thought about building a snake allowing me to take advantage of this feature. I do have 20 long (50') Canare star-quad cables which can do in a pinch, but I have no desire to bundle them together nor wrap a bunch of 50' cables.

Here are my questions:
Logistics:
How many channels? I could use 24 (1 XRM passive split x 20 + 4 utility/return), 32 (1 XRM passive split x 20 + all 12 XRM outs) or 40 (2 XRM passive splits x 20 or 1 XRM and a lot of options).

How long? This would not be for every situation, so 250' snakes are out. I want something I can handle by myself.

Technical:
Is the practical length of a passive snake significantly shorter than a transformer-isolated snake?

What about the brand (or at least specs) of snake cable? I have read that some of the qualities (capacitance, etc) that make Canare star-quad a good mike cable also make it a bit less desirable as a line-level cable (works fine for me, though). But nowhere have I seen any information on how different spec'ed cables react when carrying a split signal.

I'm building some short 8 channel snakes using Mogami and the no-screws Switchcraft connectors, so I can compare that to a comparable length bundle of Canare cables. I doubt if I'll hear any difference at the relatively short length involved.

Sorry for the lengthy posting, however, since good quality snake cable is not cheap, I thought I should ask here before making my decision based only on price and cable-suppleness/wrapability.

Thanks