That Thule is nice! But yeah I don't know if it would quite work. I also don't need much in the way of laptop sleeves. I have my XPS 13 which is pretty small and already swimming in the laptop sleeve I got 10-12 years ago to accommodate a much larger Levono.

I like your brother's website! packing cubes could work - my wife uses them for travel and they're pretty good. They usually seem better for soft stuff that will fill the cubes though.