Hi Max, glad you and your family have enjoyed it for so long :)
That's a good question, there were a few reasons. It looked a little too much like a round, undefined pile. This overall shape looks better and more like a stack of logs. An average fireplace isn't really big enough for 5 logs or to throw them on side-to-side like it did, and it looked odd if you only threw on 2 logs. There was one in the middle and on the side but nothing on the other side, so this change fixed that too. Hope that answers your question :) Happy Holidays to you too!