After much groaning and grumbling last night, I bought an extremely expensive Faxko FT16 16' reverse tripod ladder.

It collapses down to a manageable size for storage and transportation (looks like it will even fit in the long bed of my pickup without sticking out, which is nice), and it's about 12 lbs lighter than a conventional 14' tripod ladder, while still giving 16' reach. The design is rather novel. Looks stable to me. It's rated for capacity by OSHA, and it's a tripod and a ladder at once.
Setup looks to be a giant pain in the ass, but I'm ok with that if it's stable and lighter and more compact:
http://youtu.be/21DOH2Ig0xoIt should be tall enough for anything short of conventional aerial work, and I can always fabricate bracing if it's not sturdy enough. They say shipping takes about 5 days once it's in the mail, so we'll see.
I'm going to reserve tripod head mounting speculation until I've got the ladder in hand and set up, but I saw a hole at the top of the ladder, so maybe I can use that with a threaded rod to make a clamp of some kind for a mounting plate.