None of this is good reasoning or necessarily bad reasoning, but it's my reasoning.

My cooking will be for two somewhat large eaters. So that means 1.5-2 cups each for Mountain House meals plus hot water for tea. We both like 1.5-2 cups for tea so that is like 2 1l boils between the two of us. We could pack two stoves, two pots and go to 2 simultaneous boils or even 4 x 2 cup boils, but keeping it single with 2 1l boils in 1 pot/stove seems easiest. We are both coming from car camping so maybe our expectations are a bit excessive, but I'd rather appease them now and let time trim the fat.