Thanks for going through the whole exercise, Raph. You basically did what I pointed out as a solution in some of the Rimowa threads we had. I'm glad it worked.
$1050 vs. $612 is one heck of a nice price difference.
Suppose you were traveling to Germany anyway, you could even subtract the shipping cost. Then you'd look at a price difference of around $500 on that piece. Almost enough to buy you a ticket if you live on the east coast.
Till