It's one of the reasons I know a lot of people aren't buying the SS50 and waiting to see what the successor will offer, many people invested into the SS50 already have astro equipment, many get sold on perhaps because the equipment doesn't offer the same experience as their current. The short FL is also a hindrance for those that like looking at planets. Planetary imaging is already hampered on the asiair by not being able to offer larger resolutions than 1080p due to hardware incapability (the FPS would be dreadful), but with the SS it's the short FL optics.
The successor should also definitely work in a proper equatorial mode, 10s exposures in alt az are too short and unreliable for stacking purposes and so much data gets discarded due to tracking error in alt az.
