i'll start off on the time these first came out, others on here bought them, then i made the plunge not to long after that, Back then it seemed like people didn't like the 6x9 probably because of the banana shape and i'm not a fan of the banana shape bags but years ago when i bought both bags i didn't think i could shorten the loop because it was so thick and didn't think my leather hand-held hole puncher would go through, So because of that i sold the 6x9 and it went to Germany (to Florian) I've had the 5x8 for many years and probably a few years or more ago i went ahead and shortened the loop on the 5x8 (now the 5x8 hits fine with the regular length loop but i like the shortened loop much better) Getting back to the 6x9, there was a sale on that size around two or three months ago on Amazon so i figured to give that size a try again (especially since i knew i would have no problem shortening the loop as i did with the 5x8) Low and behold when it came in and i hit on it, i didn't like it (just like before) it was hard to control with the long loop but once i shortened the loop it was like night & day, Love both bags now.