While I seriously like your garbage dump hermit ideas... how are you going to actually do it, without micromanaging dumping all the time? You cannot place stockpiles over empty ground. I mean, you could try a waterfall that washes down some stairs with grates on the lowest level to drain the water but keep the stuff. I dont know if you can designate stockpiles over grates, but on the lowest, the output level, its probably not necessary. (Right now I can see an ubar complex contraption of waterfalls, stairs and drainage grates to move items around - that's actually great stuff to try).
But like you guys described it, confined garbage sorting hermits would either need waterfalls or airlock systems.
What? Have you ever tried place a garbage dump (a zone, designated from the 'i' menu) next to a chasm or channeled out area? (Note the NEXT TO, that is important.) Dwarves will throw the things down into the chasm or channeled out tile instead of just placing them on the ground.
The stockpile would merely be a means to getting the items out of the workshop for easier dumping.
Of course, that'S sorta basic knowledge, but that's not what I'm getting at. (edit; I have the urge to add a "well duh" here somewhere)
You have a dwarf, the hermit, on his respective z level, and he's supposed to sort the input items from above. That was the original idea behind the garbage hermit, right?
Sooooo... how are you going to do that without micromanaging dump zones over the output chutes?
Right.
Ah, for the entry/trade area, the 'top' of the fort? The fort seems to be intrinsically micro to me. You are locking dwarves up into there own little worlds, and keeping them supplied with materials to do their jobs, items to furnish there rooms (beds, etc), food to eat and booze to drink.
The hermits wouldn't have any problem knowing which chute to dump things into, since they would only have one in my interpretation of the fort. They get input from above, and all output goes down. (two cases I can think of: output goes down to another hermit or output goes down to a food stockpile for distribution if you don't plan on having your hermits grow there own food)
The sticky spot, where you would need to manage which chute gets input would be the top floor or whatever. The floor where raw materials get gathered and distributed. This could be accomplished several ways.
My first thought was having one room for each chute + stockpile, and a door to seal dwarves in. This would be ideal for large stockpiles (such as stone) which would need lots of haulers to get done quickly. Simply lock them in, dump, unlock. Tada. Not to much micro.
My second though was for smaller stockpiles. The chute + stockpile would still be in there own room, but the locking mechanism would be a door attached to a lever. Simply have a dwarf (you can assign the lever if you want/need to) pull the lever, thus locking himself in, then dump. Pull lever again when done, voila. Would need to make passageway long enough to prevent dwarf from getting out before door shuts.
One more way I thought about (and dismissed) was having a large central stockpile area, with each chute being behind it's own door, with an indicator of some kind near it (and forbidden rock for a rock chute, a barrel for a food chute, and so on). You just open the chute you want to dump into, and close it again afterward.