Yeah, I doubt the crank comes close to the oil level either way on modern engines, but I'm sure that a smaller quantity of oil will come up to operating temp faster.
As an example for the oil filter idea, Mobil recommends the M1-108 for my car, but the larger M1-104 will also fit. For a while, I used an M1-104, figuring that the filter media would have more surface area, and that the extra oil capacity might be good for something. But once I got on the fuel efficiency kick, I realized that that was just more oil to heat up. So I went back to the smaller filter. Mobil says it's good for double the recommended oil change interval, so I should be good.
