Robert, you are bang on about cross cab access. The 88 was like so many American lorries in lacking living space, but at least the cab had modest external dimensions!
I had good service from DAF 95s, but personally found the cab a big old thing, but my clients who rented them seemed to love them, so I kept on buying them. I bought most of my DAFs from Bob Chadwick at Northwest Trucks, which links back to your ERF threads, for Bob had been a director of ERF.
We had a problem with one of the DAFs that seemingly was not correctable…and I blew my top…an hour or so later, a replacement lorry arrived at our premises, and Bob burst into my office carrying two very large fire extinguishes…“where is the fire” he shouted…we all burst out laughing!
That was the thing about DAF, they backed up the product, (like we did with Volvo in the early days), so you kept on buying them…
But the 95 could never hold a candle for charisma to the 2800 DKSE, and the 33oos, or the 3600 space cabs…Yes I know its an age thing!
Cheerio for now.