Hi Gill,
It does sound like you had an unusual year. Your dwarfs turned into giants! I've grown several in the field rather than containers and they do get larger for me, up to 4 feet. I have not grown Mr. Snow or the Kelly Green, but that is true for the others. Tomatoes do not need much nitrogen and an excess can lead to plants setting poorly or fruiting later. You probably kept that well-balanced, so I don't have an explanation except the vagaries of weather and climate.
The Banded Amazon has very short internodes, but it is indeterminate. Did you try to grow your Kumato tomato again? I had a couple of plants from your seed and they did well. The foliage was sparse, but production was early and steady. They were good-looking tomatoes with decent flavor, and kept very well.
I'm hoping the work several of us are doing to increase cold tolerance in the tomato will result in new strains that will flourish in more northern latitudes.
In the meantime I believe the key is to do what you are doing - keep trying a number of different varieties and save seed from any that show promise. The advantage of open-pollinated versus hybrid stock is that given time, open-pollinated varieties can adapt.
Lee
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