I'm curious how he knew all that on this new model already?!? In fact, I've heard the opposite... that the 2544 does a great job mulching but a poorer job bagging.
I would agree with Gamble... I heard cub changed the way they figure the shipping costs this year and it's in the dealers advantage to "not" special order as additional shipping charges (something like 5%) get added on which would generally get passed on to the buyer.
They just set a minimum dollar order that a replinishment order has to be to get "freight free"...however, most items that are special orders are over the dollar amount anyway so that isn't really a big deal.