Your situation is far from out of hand. A real example is living with the oposite sex on occasion. Anyways you have attracted some pretty bright company to your site I see and their combined experience should be invaluable. I am not that bright myself. I did notice you mentioned amplifiers. Heavy current devices probably located in your trunk? Imagine they are also on a direct power feed from battery since they draw so heavy? Normally triggered on by front end unit. For the time being I would pull their line fuses. They could be on when they are not supposed to be.(intermittent defect in head end unit or one amp) Also an indicator is you were mentioning the desire for a heavier alternator. The more information you post the easier the guys will help you to locate the problem. It will be pretty simple after it is found. It usually is in my limited experience. Funny the last two drain situations of an auto electric nature I located for friends turned out to be their aftermarket sterio systems. That itself means nothing but get those amps really off line for a bit until something is established. This problem should be reduced to the basics to get anywhere. I would locate the ground strap remove it and clean it up plus the contact areas. This amounts to not ignoring the common experience although a test of the ground loop could also be performed by putting a booster cable between the negative battery terminal and a clean spot on the alternator or block when you are having the problem. Dab at least a little grease on terminations to reduce future oxidation and consider it just good preventative maintenance on an older car. Will be watching the posts from time to time.