Well thanks for all the suggestions. Unfortunatly a bike like a ruby has too steep a seat tube angle for me to achieve a good KOP on. I mentioned this in a private email that stemmed from this discussion and was asked to explain the relationship between seat tube angle, top tube length and reach. I thought this might be of interest to the group so here it is again:

This is how the seat tube angle stuff works. Don't worry if you find it hard to get, the manufacturers try to use this to fool women all the time. Its really very simple. All you have to understand is that every 1 degree increase in seat tube angle pushes the seat tube closer to the handlebars, so while this trick can be used to reduce the top tube length, it doesn't change the reach, because the saddle then needs to go back 1 cm to get the same KOP position. So in other words, the REACH ON the following bikes are identical:

BIKE STA TT

1 73 52
2 74 51
3 75 50
4 76 49

The problem is that someone might purchase bike 4, thinking it has the shortest top tube, without realizing that it is identical to the other choices. For example, someone may recommend the specialized ruby cuz it has the shortest TT, but it also has the steepest seat tube so it is really not very different from the giants with slacker seat tubes and longer top tubes. For ME, the problem with too steep a seat tube is that even with the saddle all the way back on the rails, my knee is too far forward of the pedal axle. Obviously if you can get set up on a bike with a steep seat tube angle its not problem, which is why there are may happy ruby owners out there.

Toe clip overlap is different, that depends on how the bike is built, both in terms of top tube length, wheel size, head tube angle and fork rake. Some combintations will be problematic and some won't. In general, to get good neutral steering with a 700c wheel you need a top tube of ~53 cm, and with 650c wheels ~52cm. So when the TT is shortened too much, either you have TCO or they decrease the head tube angle and fork rake which makes for sluggish handling.

Writing this made me realize that I have to go custom, to get a very slack STA, and normal HTA and fork rake, I think I could tolerate a long enough TT that wouldn't have TCO with 650c wheels by using a shorter reach bar than I am currently using. But, I have to get a builder to buy into this idea. And if a custom builder tells me it can't be done with 650c wheels, then I could ask him to copy my 19" steel terry isis in carbon (i.e. using the 700/24" combo).