> Using this scheme also kills any "1 byte, standalone, variable width integer" capability (unless you're storing partial values in the first T/L byte, but then that limits you to a much lower max value for one byte).

You can get the best of both worlds. The way to do it is: separate continuation bits (1's) from data bits with a 0. This gives identical encoding-length characteristics as what you are calling "vbytes" (1 byte can encode 0-127, 2 bytes can encode 128-16383, etc) while still front-loading the continuation bits.