OK, thanks. The 5560 top plate looks completely different than the 5561 currently available so I wondered if they had changed anything else. I bought one of the Gitzo 3540 XLS tripods when they were first updated a couple of years ago from the old style, and then within a year they changed the number to 3541 - I've had nothing but trouble with the 3540 (two of the three legs have come loose at the top, all three leg tips have fallen off - all repaired/replaced by Gitzo, but now the lower sections won't even open), and so I'm wondering if they changed some things with the newer 3541 model to correct a design flaw, and might have done the same with the 5560 to 5561 as well. Certainly yours is a great price, and I would buy it if it were only the current model...(I'm not saying the 5560 would have the same issues as the 3540 - I'm really hard on my equipment - but just wondering why they updated the model # on such a new tripod as they did on the 3540, plus the 5561 has the new top plate so not sure what else.)
