Charcloth, I have both and I use the short scale for picking tunes and the full scale bouzouki for rhythm accomp. in ADAD, CGCG,GDAD.where you can capo up. Having said that, and I stand to be corrected here, place a capo on your full scale bouzouki at the scale length of the octave mandolin you are interested in and listen to the sound. It should at least give you an indication of the expected sound you could expect to obtain from a shorter scale instrument.

Regards Grubby