As far as the pivoting, I've always separated upper and lower for cleaning anyway, so, never seen it as an inconvienence. I guess it could be if you don't want to separate them for some reason.
As far as barrel options, I agree some additional choices would be nice. If they offered an 18.5" SS Wylde chambered barrel, for instance, I would probably buy it. There was some minor hoopla a while back about RA moving their barrel production in house, where as they were subcontracting it before. If that is the case, I would hope it would lead to more barrel options being available down the line.