The French Diamant A, Diamant B, and Diamant BP.4 satellite launch vehicles (see:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/diamant.htm ) all had pressure-fed liquid propellant first stages (with solid propellant upper stages). Tank pressurization was achieved by means of a chemical gas generator. The Diamant A's first stage burned nitric acid and turpentine, while the uprated first stages of the Diamant B and Diamant BP.4 used N2O4 and UDMH.
Like the *much* larger Truax Sea Dragon (I was hoping you'd mention that one, as it's one of my favorite MCD proposals), a Diamant-type vehicle could also be launched directly from a sea or lake. The U.S. Navy pioneered the concept with the Sea Bee (see:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/seabee.htm ), a modified Aerobee liquid propellant sounding rocket that was launched from the ocean, recovered, refurbished, and re-launched successfully. According to the article, "This proved to be so simple that the cost of turn-around was found to be about 7% of the cost of a new unit."
Admiral Robert Truax designed several sea-launched, all-pressure-fed MCD satellite launch vehicles of various sizes and payload capabilities (see:
http://www.astronautix.com/fam/seanched.htm ). Some were expendable while others were reusable. Their robust structures (more like submarine hulls than rockets) readily lent themselves to being reusable--like a football, their already-strong tankage would be made even stronger by the internal gas pressure from their residual propellants.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 second stages could be recovered from orbit using inflatable heat shields (see:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronaut...tures/irve.html ). The NASA IRVE inflatable heat shield has only been tested in a suborbital flight thus far, but it could be used for returning Earth-orbiting satellites as well as for lowering Mars landers and rovers to the planet's surface.
In February 2000, Russia orbited a test satellite using the then-new Soyuz U-Fregat launch vehicle; both the satellite and the Fregat upper stage were fitted with inflatable heat shields (see:
http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/...marraffa103.pdf and
http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/irdt/factsheet.pdf ). The IRDT test satellite was found intact (although its heat shield tore and partially deflated during descent) but the larger Fregat stage was never located--it was believed to have been stolen by locals for scrap metal! Also, the Russian Mars-96 lander (lost in the launch failure) had been equipped with an inflatable heat shield for entering Mars' atmosphere.
The S-1D definitely sounds like a design type that should be pursued. There is no need to try to "re-invent the Saturn V" (or this modification of it, in this case) down to the original alloys and fasteners; rather, new vehicles of similar configuration (such as those you described) using current or soon-to-be-developed LOX/kerosene rocket engines and Shuttle ET tankage would provide reliable heavy-lift capability without trying to re-purpose the Shuttle's expensive SSMEs and SRBs.