I'm not so sure Grumpy, the previous design was physically quite resilient, as the short stem did not allow it to bent or snap easily.
The biggest issue I have encountered is build up inside the stem causing the poppet inside to jam open, and therefore destroying compression, I would imagine adding a longer stem would only increase the chances of this happening, and make it harder to deal with when it does, further, the head is smaller, and would likely become gunked up much faster.
I would imagine a good kick to this valve would cause it to bent or break along one of those ribs on the shaft.
The inly advantage i could imagine to this, is the smaller head may make the valve more responsive to the vacuum feed, and more reliable until it became gunked up or damaged.
Then again, I have not had the chance to see inside this one!
