Just reading all of this now and it's so exciting! One of the girl's I ride with is a shorty... 5'3" ish. She rides the Surly Straggler, which is a CrossCheck with disc breaks, and is super in love with it. If you're concerned about the color attracting the thieves of Baltimore, you can always add other fun things to distract from the orange like a top tube pad (which you might want anyways to protect the paint from leaning against nasty sign posts), colored break cables, etc. Have fun with it.... just like the website says, it's made to do whatever you want it to do!

Please post pictures when you get it!!!