Lunascaping and Zubrin

I don't think that anyone has done serious studies of large scale Mars
habs. The Areophiles tend to leap from flags and footprints to
Terraforming without serious consideration of the intermediate stages. I've made the same observation. I used to wonder why I had such a hard time convincing Mars fans that a High Frontiersituation would be helpful to them in their goals toward Mars. But then it finally occurred to me that there were only two places their minds liked to go, and it's the two you mention above. There's nouse for High Frontier in Mars Direct, because MD doesn't even need so much as a space station. They don't see any use for High Frontier in terraforming, because that will be done by an advanced (and thus presumably independent) Martian civilization. It's the in-between era, when it's time to get the first hundred thousand tons of mining equipment, the first million tons of ore refineries, and the first million tons of manufacturing facilities to Mars where High Frontier would be vitally necessary. But since the mind of the Mars fan tends to skip over that era, they tend not to see the utility.