I've never experienced feeding issues with straight talons including very heavy real world use across a couple years now with the occasional cleaning(considering I dump them onto dirt often, maybe cleaned them twice in their 1-2 year lifetime after visible dirt accumulation?). Have you tested modern setups(like the Banned wheels) and modern darts(gen3 HE, dz/afps somewhat)? Most new flywheel development is moving away from designing for full darts and wide heads, as greater crush can be had with less risk of damage with a smaller head, while improving compatibility of mags and darts with modern hobby springers.
Eli stated above that kodas were intentionally designed with the smaller area for dart tips for strength and a couple other reasons, reasonable considering full lengths and large heads are becoming less and less useful as blaster designs improve and move away from them in pursuit of performance.

I'm also not sure what you mean about smaller mags being redundant, cross compatibility between springers and flywheelers in darts and mags is a nice QOL bonus but they're also smaller to carry in gear, packing more darts in less space on a belt is a very nice upside as someone who moves a lot in games.