Armchair theory: like “Speed Limit 55,” and “8-10 glasses of water per day,” the 7-8 hour recommendation comes with a built-in, 10-15% buffer designed to motivate people to adopt a behavior that “they” believe to be beneficial.
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For a mercifully limited time during graduate school, I edited papers for a scholar of literature who, from his crag at the pinnacle of the slave-star system, scoffed at the notion that one requires more than a couple of hours of sleep. He also dismissed the coffee breaks of colleagues as a waste of time and explanation for their lesser output. I posit that he fueled his special blend of world class scholarship and epic obstreperousness by drawing power from the part of the brain that is normally responsible for suppressing the instinct to be an asshole. Further, he appeared to have rewired it directly into the part of the brain whence all asshole behavior originates.
Now, I train with a winner of the Olympia who says a lot of sleep is important to building muscle. She’s a great deal nicer and stronger than that snark golem was and is highly productive in her various roles, so sleep it is.
I fuel my work with coffee, but sometimes when I’m dragging around, there’s no substitute for a nap, with the caveat that if I sleep more than about 20 minutes, the afternoon is shot. This thing you say about coffee before a nap is interesting. I’ll experiment with that.
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Good story! 
Would espresso work the same as coffee? My assumption is yes and my thinking is that it would be easier/faster to consume prior to the nap.
Absolutely no reason I can see that it wouldn’t.