Lizzy, I love your stripes, and wish mine was a bit more stripey, but they have become more defined ... Sounds like you're not into the stripes tho. As far as the maple veneer moray pattern thing, that is actually very common in maple guitars I have noticed ... It's not unique to this guitar, and I' m not sure what causes that. I did expect it to look that way though. My hog mini, which preceded my HV was not as difficult to play as your HV, but it did help me adjust to medium strings, so much that now I don't like light strings usually because the medium adds so much meatiness to tone on all my guitars. However, I had some set up work done on my hog mini, which eased play a bit ... I do think it is a little harder to play than a typical full size Taylor, but I basically accepted that as trade off for small guitar (similar experience with other small guitars).
Does not matter though .... Doesn't sound like your guitar .... well it may SOUND like your guitar, but doesn't look or play like the guitar you want:-) Good luck getting the right one.