Your thinking is spot on, Mark. Hard pvc is fine for a single long (5' or more) straight run, but most people don't realize that hard pipe should be "soft coupled" to anything rigid (toilet, tank, thru-hull) with a foot or two of hose. More than one LONG piece of hard pipe in the same installation will result in a whole bunch of fittings that can trap bits of waste and TP.
Saniflex is great but it will eventually permeate smells. I am talking 15+ years.
Well, Alan...10 years is the average working life of any hose because rubber and plastics dry out over time, becoming hard, brittle, and prone to cracking and splitting. In fact, BOAT/U.S. published an article several years ago in which they said old hoses connected to thru-hulls left open when no one is aboard is the leading cause of boats sinking in their slips.
BTW - the main cause of odour from sanitary hose is sewage not cleared or dead small sealife creatures in the hose.
That's true of toilet intake hoses, Leo, but very little sea life--alive or dead--goes through toilet discharge lines. It's actually waste left to sit or cling to the walls of toilet discharge and pumpout hoses that permeates them....And all that extra pumping is just filling up your holding tank...it doesn't accomplish anything more than the bucketful of fresh water you're flushing daily, and you can accomplish just as much with a quart/liter or two as with a bucketful.
--Peggie