I think he means a "surprise stage" where you are told only "this is a 24 round course of fire" and you have to go through it and find out where the targets are.
This works fine in a level 1 or fun match, but for any kind of level II or higher, it's pointless. Good shooters can piece together what a stage looks like just by listening to it, and fully expect that people will be talking about what it looks like after they finish shooting it, which defeats the point of the "surprise".
As far as options go, my order of preference would be:
Given that the match can be completed in 1 full day:
1. Shoot only, no work. (duh! Who doesn't want this to be their first preference).
2. Shoot and work at the same time and have only half days on the range. Having the odd day when you can sleep in is nice.
3. Shoot a full day, work a full day. Concentrate on just the shooting. However, if you shoot first and work the next day, expect that the "work day" is going to be a "hangover day" and things will move much slower.
Given 3 half days:
1. Shoot 3 half days and work at the same time. Again, anything to minimize my time on the range.
2. Shoot 1 and a half full days and work 1 full day (or 1 and a half days). Honesty, I think that if you had people shoot a full day, shoot a half day (with the rest of the day off) and work 1 full day, that's not too bad.
Every big match in the US follows the format of dedicated CRO's and RO's with the squads taping and setting steel and it works fine. Everyone does their part down there. I honestly don't know why Canadians seem to be the laziest when it comes to doing their part during the match. I cannot believe how many people I saw who were holding conversations when they should have been taping and patching. Granted, a larger squad makes it go easier.
Consider that a squad needs to have:
1 shooter getting ready
1 shooter on deck
1 shooter following the RO around checking their scores.
1 shooter is probably charging magazines
In a squad of 8, that leaves 4 people who should be working. A larger squad model makes things go easier, though, so I would suggest 10 people is the minimum squad size for this to really work out.