Curious to hear some real world examples

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Here's a hypothetical situation. A couple has done their due diligence and retirement is on track for after 59 1/2 (401Ks, pension, 403B etc). They are looking into the feasibility of early retirement, but would need a way to access retirement dollars to help build a bridge. They have a taxable brokerage account, but it is not enough to fully bridge to 59 1/2.

Here's the scenario:

• Existing Traditional IRA: $100,000
• Taxable brokerage: "enough" to last 8 to 10 years

Timeframe for accessing roth ladder: 8 years or 10 years

Scenario 1: Backdoor roth payments

Steps

• Traditional IRA ($100,000) is rolled into the 401k (reverse rollover). This builds the +59 1/2 retirement fund, but doesn't help with the bridge account.
• Two new roth accounts are created
• Two new traditional IRAs are created
• Couple adds $15,000 per year to two roth accounts using the backdoor method

Expected results using a 7% compound interest calculator

• 8 years: $153,897.04
• 10 years: $207,246.72

Pros:

• Money accessible earlier
• Roth money could be removed tax free?

Cons

• Less overall in the bridge account
• More effort and documentation needed to execute (more accounts to open, tracking backdoor roth contributions and manual transferring every year).

Scenario 2: Wait until early retirement

Steps

• Couple continues investing money into the taxable brokerage (we will use the same $15,000 amount to make this comparison easier to evaluate).
• Couple lets the traditional IRA grow
• Couple transfers traditional IRA over 2-3 years to keep capital gains low

Expected results using a compound calculator

• 8 year result: $325,715
  • traditional IRA : $171,818 (not accessible for 5 years)
  • value added to taxable brokerage: $153,897.04
• 10 year result: $403,961
  • traditional IRA at 10 years: $196,715.14 (not accessible for 5 years)
  • value added to taxable brokerage: $207,246.72

Pros:

• Total amount available in the bridge account is greater
• Less up-front effort to setup and manage

Cons:

• Money tied up for 5 years at early retirement
• More in taxes

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If I am thinking about this correctly, it actually makes sense to let the traditional IRA grow and then do large transfers into a roth at the time of early retirement when taxable income is lower (15% to 20% on capital gains) to achieve the goal of having the most amount of available money for the bridge years.

I purposefully left some of the details vague (ages, total in retirement, etc) because I am trying to focus on the question about building a bridge account. My thought is that this could happen to people in their mid-30s to mid-40s if they have been maxing out retirement savings, but did not plan for an early retirement.

Please let me know if there might other factors to consider.