I liked grace hopper's comments as a rebuttal against "only vertical! No horizontal!" but I'd agree that reading that rebuttal dogmatically would be just as bad of a decision.
Bigger is better in terms of height and girth when it comes to capabilities. At any given time, figure out the most cost efficient number of oxen of varying breeds for your workload and redundancy needs and have at it. In another year if you're still travelling the Oregon trail you can reconsider doing the math again and trading in the last batch's oxen for some new ones, repeat as infinitum or as long as you're in business.
I liked grace hopper's comments as a rebuttal against "only vertical! No horizontal!" but I'd agree that reading that rebuttal dogmatically would be just as bad of a decision.
Bigger is better in terms of height and girth when it comes to capabilities. At any given time, figure out the most cost efficient number of oxen of varying breeds for your workload and redundancy needs and have at it. In another year if you're still travelling the Oregon trail you can reconsider doing the math again and trading in the last batch's oxen for some new ones, repeat as infinitum or as long as you're in business.