The key to this thread may be though that the OP said she's a light sleeper. We're heavy sleepers so the sound wouldn't bother us. The height is where the problem often comes in for me and it's not the clearance on the bed, but it's getting to it and walking around it.
Agree, and I (we) have no real way to quantify how "some noise" might impact...
Actually trying it out -- chartering or whatever -- seems like a useful idea, but we find the actual noise level also seems to vary all over the map. Sometimes gentle rippling, sometimes more aggressive wave slap, depending on wind and sea states. I'd think it might take more than just a couple days on charter to decide what's acceptable... and variance from boat to boat (is the charter the same as the target candidate) might be difficult to control for, too. IOW, there's likely still some guesswork required...
Yep, our big step up is an issue. We deal with it, but I'd have preferred less height -- one less storage drawer underneath would probably do it, two less would be even better, but then of course storage become an issue, too.
If I were designing our lottery boat, I think I'd make it a standard household size and at the same time set the whole mattress lower and further aft. My goal would be to have the thing easier to make up with standard linens, and with about 4/5ths of each side truly walk-around. That'd offer a chance to waste some space up near the anchor/rope locker, but I'd guess that could be fashioned into storage for stuff that's not used as often.
In my lottery boat, this would be the guest stateroom anyway, though (remembering that fictional full-beam master I mentioned before), so I wouldn't care all that much.
-Chris