Good you are happy with the gear. Ebay is Patrick which is Zian Americas. Price on ebay is actually the price as in the America's online shop but you may have been lucky with an early adopter price.
For people from Europe that is not beneficial as they will pay much less when they buy directly from Zian Europe,
sebastiaan@ziankites.com, due to transport costs and taxes. Prices in our current (old) EU shop were negotiable. We are currently working on a new European website and shop where "price is what you really pay" unless buying more than 1 kite where there is still some extra discount given. (note: I have to respect forum rules so cannot mention the current prices here).
We do not work with yearly models. Instead we work with version numbers. We do introduce small updates but without changing the version number or waiting for a new year to start. For example; we have already increased bag size and introduced air stop on the V1 models. We are working on some other small things and maybe some other colors one day but it will still all be V1 as long as we do not really change flying characteristics.
We are also working on bar v2. but again, it will not be there because of 2014 starting but just when we have finished the new model.
We are also working on a new kite model which will find it's introduction somewhere in 2014 as well