Pete,
I am a little confused as I have no record of you purchasing the HD springs for the Bandit / Bobcat struts? You also indicate the HD springs as being shorter however they are identical in length! The HD springs are wound with a heavier gauge wire, no change has been made to the length dimension of these springs?
What is the weight of your Bobcat XL? Since the XL is a built-up airframe, they are quite a bit heavier than the composite versions the gear where designed for.
The spring memory will fade on these struts when the gear are excessively compressed... This typically happens with a heavy arrival or an airframe over-weight for the strut/spring design.
We warranty all Pro-Link struts to be free from slop in the pivot. As Frank has been offered (twice), we are happy to repair or replace any strut set that has developed slop in the pivot at no charge as long as the struts show no signs of abuse. You may also call us to request a free set of our new shouldered pivot bolts which 95% of the time fix the slop issue when installed. Simply return the struts to us for service if you don't wish to replace these shoulder bolts yourself.....

Feel free to contact me with any questions, we stand behind our Pro-Link gear 100%

Todd