Thanks for the kind words. As a general rule, I defer to the author unless I can argue strongly against a change, which I cannot here. Rest assured, if I want a change accepted no matter what, you'll hear about it in great detail. That, to me, is the basis of the author-editor partnership (it's 51% to the author, 49% to the editor, so the editor has to either defer or persuade, and that's fine with me. 

So I agree with your changes and look forward to seeing the next part of what I hope you are compiling into a book of short stories (which reminds of a great book, likely a series of books by now, called Short, Shorts or something similar). 

Cheers, Jackson