+1 to the above poster on biner usage. As others have said if you had to carry 2 times the number of biners for twin no one would carry it.
Regarding short ropes in the alpine environment. Reason for short ropes is that generally the alpine has Huge amounts of low "climbing" class terrain class 3/4 with short sections of low 5th. Finding high 5th class terrain is the exception not the norm. Such routes generally are "classics". Said terrain only needs short rapells generally once one becomes comfortable with such terrain in the first place.
Nearly every climb could be done with half or twin ropes 30m long. Only if you are going for multipitch climbing routes do you need longer ropes. In this case double ropes would be optimum unless you have an easy walk off option. Otherwise folks take a pull down static rope to save weight, though this can be risky if the knot gets stuck and you are left holding only one end… Reason it gets stuck is it requires a square faced knot to hold small rope to a larger knot. On same sized ropes this is not a problem as one can tie together using figure 8 with a backup overhand to keep from unravelling.
If you are looking for light weight rappel only rope then a 5mm static rope is about as good as you can do. Be very carful of sharp edges of course. Note you cannot climb on said rope. I know of a guy who rappells off of 3mm. He ties it to a rock and leaves it. Its so small he doesn't even put his whole weight on it. Its for rappeling 50-55-60 degree "cliff" stuff that is quite common in the alpine environment. Class 4 and very low class 5. He also brings the aforementioned static true rappeling rope as well that is 80ft long.
If we are talking true light weight, don't need a rappel device at all, munter hitch. Best for alpine environ where the aforementioned tons of 3rd 4th and low 5th reside and multipitch climbing is not prevalent.
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