we have a grande espace, does the job pretty well at being a foot longer than a stock espace giving actual legroom in the back and some luggage capacity loaded, pretty routinely has 6 people a bike (mine) and assorted luggage in it and for anything big the roof bars are a permanent (aero designed) feature.
We debated swapping it for a van and a tiny runaround (as anything over 2 tons drinks diesel) as most of the time it has a few people and a lot of stuff (its used as a business truck by a photographer a shop owner, a cleaning firm and a clothes company) but couldn't find one flexible enough.
I don't know about other people carriers but you can move the seats around to a lot of different places in the espace to give you options, one lives in the shed pretty much and most of the time and the others are 2-2-2- in linegiving a lot of shoulder room in the middle and leg room all round. But 2----- means we can fit 2 sofas in the back, 2-2--- or 2-3--- means you can carry more people and as much stuff as would fit in a big estate (more really as you can stack it higher).
Oh and another nifty feature I found a few months ago is that the spare is on a winched cable so you never have to lift it up to put it back in the boot which is dead handy as my mum drives it sometimes and the wheels are big enough to be heavy. I don't know how normal this is but every other car we've had has had the spare in the boot (farking hard work on an A8 rim) or the back door (similar with rangerover wheels) or bonnet (which is just cool).
Rickshaw Phil, licensed for up to 17 seats + 7.5 tonnes + tractors + lawn mowers + mopeds.
Haven't done the other stuff though. I've missed out! 
- but only with carbon neutral accelerant's (for ethical reasons of course 
