ToughSF's actual link, for which we were planning those mammoth toroidal habitats, was to "Tackling a Mars Cycler Design Head-On" (pdf but badly encoded). Let's abstract it out.
These habitats aren't asteroidal mines. For the trio who wrote that paper, they're temporary housing - shuttles. That allows them to be designed smallest, first. The smallest torus they'll allow fits maybe high-fifties of people. There's a lot of room per person, because this is a 180 day mission until the cycler drops them off at Deimos. Once at Deimos they're Mars' problem; their emptied shuttle then cycles back to Earth where it's Earth's problem.
The trajectory this paper assumes is the classic Aldrin, maintained by solar-electric propulsion. They want to build it in LEO where the SEP paper proposed much higher: TLL1. I'd rather the far-side lunar base with assembly at TLL2... but that might be harder now.
This doesn't have to be a T/M cycler. It could be Hohmann, with less outgoing delta-V. But to Mars/Deimos that takes longer and then it would have to brake and stay there. It could also be a temporary lab in space but then, why not just use a Janhunen or an asteroid-colony to be worked indefinitely. So, we hohmann it out to Deimos or some isolated nearby rock, which we then dock and exploit.
The lab of 55 dudes isn't a colony. Whether it stay there or cycle back, its crew-and-cargo are not staying at Deimos or Atíra or wherever. This is a mission to say they were there. What they might be able to do is patch together some infrastructure for the next shuttle - which will host hundreds.
The design overall might be better for shifting into other orbits. As noted the outgoing Hohmann is less delta-V than the insertion into Aldrin. If the shuttle can take that, it can certainly take the deceleration to dock Deimos. Can you do that with a Janhunen or a big rolling bag of Bennu? I am pretty sure once you have an orbiting Janhunen, it's not going anywhere else.
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