With my long legs and short torso, I seem to be an odd duck to fit typical bicycle proportions. I currently have a 58 cm bike with a 110 mm stem. I've got the seat raised a bit and have raised the stem (it's an old bike with a quill stem) beyond its minimal insertion point to ease the reach. (It's still a couple of inches below the saddle.) Problem is that the reach to the bars is too great due to my short torso. I'm a re-entrant rider, but have about 3400 miles on this setup since August. I find myself naturally moving my hands to the curved part of the bar's top corners, about 2 inches in back of the hoods.

Both the Competitive Cyclist Fit and the LBS Fit Kit say I should be on a bike with a 58-59 cm seat tube or higher, but with a 55-56 cm top tube. Can't get there from here non-custom. The LBS says to get a 56 and they'll play tricks with stem angles to raise the bars since the seat would be raised so much on the smaller bike. I could accomplish the same thing by getting a long Nitto quill stem for my current bike with, say, a 70 mm reach instead of 110 mm. Wouldn't that effectively shorten the top tube by 40 mm (virtually speaking, of course)? But I don't know how squirrely it would feel with such a short stem reach.

So, what would be the effect on feel/handling with such a short stem reach? Do long-legged people with short torsos buy a smaller size to match their reach? And if so how are they raising the bars to match the high seat? Or are they buying a larger frame and using shorter stem reaches?