I guess it depends how far away you are from the scene. We'll stage at the firehouse if it's in town since the village is less than a square mile. But if the scene is 30 miles away, we'll head that way! You do propose an interesting idea though. We usually stage about a half mile to a mile away on the side of the road. Maybe we can stage at other department's firehouses on their ramps--it would put us closer to other people...
From our station we can get to any residence in less than 10 minutes. If the call is at the furthest point we will cut the distance in half, but never closer than a badguy with bad intent could walk while waiting for PD. But, most of our trouble spots (trailer parks) are just a mile or so from the center of town so we can get there from the station just as easy.