OOooh! I love a happy ending!!
I know the longer looser jackets (denim as well as leather) have been trendier for the past few years, but I have resisted that trend and have stuck with my cropped versions, because I, too, am 5'3" (or 4, if I am stretching, LOL) and while long in the rise, am short waisted. The longer looser jackets tend to swamp me.
I LOVE the look of the new Elora -- gorgeous, and of course not as cropped on someone of our height as on the model, but still just short enough to make the proportion work.
When I first joined YLF I went through a phase of photographing outfits precisely to figure out proportions and measured all my jackets to see which ones worked best on me. It was enlightening, for sure. And I did learn that when an outfit feels "off" it's often about the relative lengths and their relationship to my body.