since my current problem is the nesting limit, not the doc count limit, can we make it "more than 250 OR more than 2 nested levels"?

ok... yet another solution:

case in point: to answer your question took *many* clicks... 5 levels (less than 100 docs).

good point. how about an ajax call? i.e. any time a level is expanded it returns a json array of the documents in that branch (a spinner is displayed while fetching).

i find the current display of documents a little lacking: it is a bit misleading (because there are effectively hidden documents), it gives a poor overview of the entire document landscape, and it forces a lot of extra clicking & reloading if i am trying to get to a deeply nested document.