Hi Chris,
thanks for replay 
I also plan to use Intel R200 in combination with LIDAR. But I plan to convert its 3D data into 2D laser scan. With LIDAR I also have issues when robot cannot recognize obstacles that are higher than LIDAR can detect.
By adding R200 I hope it will detect these obstacles more reliably.
Do you have more information about using 3D camera as you described above?
I still think that my LDS-01 is bottleneck of my robot. RPLIDAR A2M8 looks like very good LIDAR for its price.
Range is 3.5x better, sample rate is 4.5x better and accuracy also looks better.
What do you think, is there any better LIDAR with similar price?