Chief Rick,
The reason that they state try to balance the load on a residental panel is the Neutral will carry the unbalanced load, so if you have 60 amps on one phase and 30 amps on the other the neutral is would have a load of 30 amps. It gets much worse with three phase. Which is why the neutral must be the same wire size as the feeder wires. I can go in to more detail if you wish but it makes my brain hurt also.
Old Top
(electrician for about 40 yrs)