RE GRO searches - I've only just realised that even though free BMD doesn't havae all the ages at death, if you go as if you are going to order a certificate it does bring up the entry you are interested in, and it does give the age, so have been able to disregard some deaths
Likewise even before the maiden name comes up on free BMD, it usually comes up on the GRO site, so you either know it is them or it is not them or it throws up an in teresting search.
You obviously don't need to go and order the pdf if you do not want to
As for informant, I have started trying to find out what happened to some of my direct grandparents , and first one I did was he died in the pub of heart failure. Not a heart attack heart failure and build up fo fluid, I've been making up stories, maybe he wasn't well and stopped off for help on his way home from work and just collapsed...the informant has the same name as a brother or son in law, but at a differnt address to that at the census a year later, so don't know if it was just that he was there when it happened and was nominated as the person to do it, or he was sparing his widow who had a small child from the journey to the register office on a cold winters day
RE the deep graves, there are some in Leeds Beckett st cemetery called guinea graves, yes they are many deep but for a guinea you could have your loved oe's name and dates on a stone with 29 others. There is a book called 'to prove I'm not forgot' - living and dying in a victoria city by Sylvia Barnard which is about Beckett St cemetery, she has also done one called viewing the breathless corpse all about coroners and inquests
Both very informative for anyone even if not from Leeds