Got one of these in-hand now. It's decent, but nothing earth-shattering. I'm actually very underwhelmed. The way I've seen folks rave about them I thought they be a lot better. For me, the biggest improvement is of course the base body. There's really no comparing an old floppy trooper body to a Truetype. The TT body is also padded to prevent the armor from moving around - this can very easily be done to any SSC Stormie. The other significant improvements over the SSC without analyzing them side by side and against the movie, are the upper chest armor is tighter on the body and the crotch armor is a bit larger.
Does it "blow away" or "annihilate" or "fill on the blank" the SSC? No, not by a long shot. Well, it does in price.
I *much* prefer the SSC shoes. I'll see about getting them side by side soon, before I pack up the HT and send him off in trade for the short version.
(I'll be buying another regular height version next month)