I also haven't posted much. I ran a MP campaign in the 80s (as a review for a game magazine, originally), and the whole "why didn't they try to stop the war, why wait 5 years, what did Bruce Morrow really know" package bugged the players ... and the characters.
A lot of discussions like the ones on this thread were no doubt had by planners within the MP; given 20-30 years of work, they may have had changes in policy, differences of opinion, etc. Maybe even conspiracies! Heh, if you can hide a massive industrial scheme from the government, you can hide a piece of it from itself.
"I don't agree with the Council; I'm gonna make sure that in my district, there are some large amounts of food supplies stashed away for the survivors!"
The 'camp in a box' idea sounds very appropriate for *some* form of the Project, at some period. My campaign didn't feature the MP as being quite such a gigantic scheme as to divert 2% of grain production, though. But I think the main issue with several of these concepts is the "what were the planners planning for?"
For any number of reasons in canon, it's "wake up 3 to 5 years after the war (or whatever event". But the actual snooze period turns out to be 150 years. I'm pretty sure that buried ISO containers full of food, etc. are probably not gonna be in usable condition in 150 years. How rust-resistant are they?
On a related topic: I've heard of miles-long sets of railway container flats stored on unused sidings in some Western states lately; and this news story:
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=234087
The durability of MP caches and bolt-holes is sort of a requirement for the game to proceed at all; but there's no reason at all to presume that every other cache, supply, stash, base, etc. was laid down ready for a 150 year delay.
"You manage to pry open the rusty steel cover, and peer down the concrete steps. The air smells ... off, and you decide to let it ventilate for a couple of hours. Proceeding inside, you enter the underground space; the concrete is very thick but crudely finished. There are rusty water stains up to shoulder height on the walls, and a few dangling remains of light fixtures on the ceilings. Some cracks in the concrete walls and ceiling have wept long strings of cement and dirt from outside. As you proceed around the hexagonal passage, the corroded end doors of formerly-sealed containers are on your left hand. All of them are completely rusted out at the bottom; a layer of mold, bits of cardboard, deteriorated plastic, rust flakes, and broken glass covers the floor for 20 cm or so. Prying open one of the doors, you see what was once an ISO box container packed with MREs - now reduced to a dry, mildew-smelling compost about waist-deep. Do you want to look in more containers?"
The bigger the stash, the more likely that it will have been found, or degraded environmentally. Still, nice to lure your bunkering Recon team out to a remote site and the usual fun with the locals.
So: camp-in-a-box may well have existed, but doesn't mean you have to make up a 200 page spreadsheet listing all the contents.