First, I don't know if we can necessarily classify "sleep" as human nature, since all animals do it. It doesn't really set us apart from them, although it is an ingrained part of how we survive.
I like the "bell curve" analysis of sleep you gave. Perhaps it has to do with our growth and deterioration; when we're little, we need more sleep because of how much growth we are undergoing, and when we're older we need more sleep because of our bodies beginning to break down and not be as effective as they used to be. That would place our prime performance somewhere from post-adolescence to mid-life, which seems to be the time that people sleep the least.
Personally, I find myself having large stores of energy during the day, so sleeping a lot is not really necessary for me. This may be due to the fact that I have a high metabolism, I drink a lot of things with caffeine, and I eat lots of sugar and starch throughout the day. I believe that diet and lifestyle, as well as genetic predispositions for digestion, must have a lot to do with how quickly a person tires. It must stem from both the biological and mental, however, as you can force yourself to stay up for quite a bit longer than average if you will yourself to and keep your mind occupied, although I don't recommend doing this on a regular basis.
Of course, sleep seems like a strange thing to me, despite how "natural" it appears (by which I mean common). You basically are involuntarily going unconscious for a few hours at a time so that your body can recuperate from basic life processes. It's kind of strange if you think about it like that.
Q: What concepts about human nature might be different if we didn't ever sleep?
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