Yeah, I would have gone corner to corner with the barbs, but that would make that tube near impossible to keep from kinking without some butt-ugly (IMHO) zipties or some such. Abit likes to place the socket right behind the backplane. All things considered, it's still a better option than a kinking hose. Moving the bottom one over would have struck the case's backplane where it zigs and zags from the I/O to the cards. (the bottom barb is on the left in the pic)
The water paths are quite narrow when looking down through them, much smaller than a heater core, so I shouldn't think that preferential flow would be as much a problem as with a more more open heatercore. And even if it were, it's off center from the fan hub, and not burried behind the fan mounts.
In any event, it's
much better than the origional 4 pass design, and since I shortened those tubes inside the endtank by at least 1/4", and the tanks are much higher than the origionals, there's hope.
A tad more planning here than meets the eye.
I have pics of each step, but just can't find time to sit and write until the weekend.
Have a great one, all!