Questions on the straggler

The straggler ticks off most boxes for me and seems overall charming, but I have two concerns:

-how bad are the dropouts, really? I never understood why surly didn’t switch to throu axles when designing it. They’re so much more convenient, especially on the road. I personally struggle to properly align the wheels of my vintage racing bike and I would hate to have a second bike with this issue.

-the smaller 650b frame sizes of the straggler have quite a dramatic slope, which I really dislike. But I can’t tell at what size it becomes apparent. I’d either need a 52 or 50cm.

Thanks in advance