Regarding benches, I love our deep end bench. It's 10' long with a step on each side. The vision in my head when building it was my teenage son and his friends doing stupid showoff teenage boy things while the girls could sit on the bench and laugh at them, which is pretty much how I see that playing out. We've used it as an adult hang out spot when kids are busy splashing on the ledge. It's also closer to the spa and gets used a lot to enter and leave the pool. Unexpected benefit is that since our bench bumps out it's an easy place to add chemicals and grab water samples without having to lift or take off the cover since we never "close" the pool and the cover only spans the main rectangle.
Regarding depth, I considered the same sort of sports layout, once we decided on a slide (which I highly recommend!) we had to have a deep end. Your kids are little now, but they grow fast. Think long term goals for this. Our driving goal was to continue to be The House our son and his friends wanted to be at so we could get to know them and their families a little better. Kids like to jump in and do cannonballs, they love trying to dive down to the bottom to touch our little starfish tile, they love racing to try to get diving toys before they hit bottom in the deep end. The 5 - 6 foot section of the pool is the least used. It's shallow enough I worry I'll scrape my feet or stub my toes if I'm treading water, but too deep to do anything properly. That depth range for us is strictly a transition. People are either on the ledge/bench, horsing around in the shallow area, or in the deep end. I think there might be considerations of how the pool holds temperature with or without a deep end as well. Your mileage may vary of course, that's just us.
Either way, think of what you're actually going to do in the pool immediately, and try to think about what your family will be doing ten years from now, or longer. Some things to consider....What activities do you see the family doing? Want to play pool volleyball? How will the net be strung? Pool basketball? Swim lane if any of the kids gets competitive? Maybe you end up with a water polo player? Exercise with a deck mounted pull up bar? Place to put drinks? Place you and the wife can relax without being splashed too much by kids playing? Who else will be using it? When you have friends over, where will the drinks be? Is the bar easy to get to for people in and out of the pool? Do you imagine you and your friends standing around the shallow end? Think about future pool parties for the kids. If kids are swimming, where are adults hanging out? Are there points of congestion as people move from house to pool to to bar to bathroom and back? What's the best path for people to jump in, get out, and jump back in again? What about shade at different times of day, are there existing trees that might impact the design and orientation? Is there a particular view in your yard you love or hate? Are views from inside the house important to you? Just really spend some time getting specific about the things you will do in your pool, then imagine how to make those experiences the best.
