short rod
Dan and I are riding sno bikes with adjustable struts. When you ad or subtract 1/4" of adjustment you will influence handling good and bad.
Playing with adjustment to the extremes to note how the handling changes:
when you shorten the rod: the front of the track frame drops, back of the track comes up off the snow or at least has very little pressure, too much pressure on the front of the track and bike won't go through the snow, won't want to climb if you have any loose snow , track doesn't want to climb on top of the snow and float. to some degree though on just good snowy some loose sled trail, handling is better, less pressure on back of track and bike doesn't give you as much side to side tilt and hunt as the track rolls over sled tracks and ruts.
when you lengthen the strut to the extreme: ski pressure gets excessive and makes poor trail handling and slow handling, ski tends to plunge in all deep snow and won't climb on top of snow, track in the snow tends to be dug up as track is spinning , so you go back and walk your track and no nice track foot print.
3/4" either way from ideal strut length ride length really screws up bike performance.
3/16 " difference in strut length really can make a big leap in performance in the deep snow.
anyway, that's what I have found in the mtns of Montana.