Congrats on your new BC and welcome to the HL forum and family. Best part of owning a Heartland product is you are now eligible to join the HOC and attend some rallies. You'll meet great, fun loving people who share your passion and begin to put faces to the names of the members here on the forum. Some of us are better looking than others but you have to take the good with the bad. Again, if you like good conversation, good food(and lots of it), meeting great people and making friends for life. So nice on a long trip to pull into a rally and break up the trip visiting friends you made here. We plan our long trips to coincide with rallies nation wide.
If there is a change in the newer models it is because HL listens to it's customers. Lots of people have requested the shorter rigs to accommodate different parks. Our BH is one of the shorter ones also.
Again, congrats on your new rig and don't be a stranger to the forum. Hope to meet you down the road.