Excellent to hear your experience.
As far as using your current snap up brackets, disregard me - I'm nuts.
As far as bending struts, there are a couple of ways:
1. Turning too sharp.
2. Allowing one or both of the strut bars to get loose. If they get loose, the head can start wobbling, That's bad.
It can be a combination of both: Make too tight a turn, bend a strut. Then, since the strut is bent, it's a bit shorter, so the head is now loose. So you get increased wobbling on the head, which can bend the strut further, and even oval out the mounting ears for the strut bars on the head.
My used Hensley had ovaled out holes. Doesn't affect it, though. Why? Because the struts are under compression. As long as I have the struts adjusted correctly, they never touch the backside of the mounting ears.
I couldn't be happier with your report on your HA experience.
One thing to keep in mind - part of your increased steering feel is because you pulled a BUNCH of weight off the tongue. Your front axle isn't as light now as it was. You definitely need to play with your screw jacks and get the weight transfer where you want it.
The swiveling/bump you feel backing up and changing directions is perfectly normal. It isn't really the "Hensley bump" but it does illustrate what happens during the bump.
If you are going down a hill, usually low speed, and the TV is slowing faster than the TT, the TT will push forward on the linkage and settle to one side or the other. The way to avoid this is to grab your brake controller and keep just a bit of brake on the trailer. And most people set the gain up enough so that the trailer is braking a bit harder than the truck. This keeps tension on the HA.
When you go in reverse, the same thing happens. And if you turn opposite the side that it's settled on, it will jump over to the other side. So you'll feel it when it happens. When you are expecting it, it's not a problem. If not expecting it, it can startle you a bit.
Anyhow, I highly suggest you get it all loaded up and then get some weights. Or at the very least, get it adjusted so you don't have too much front axle rise. I'm going to ballpark it and say that your front end rise, when hitch, shouldn't be more than an inch or so. You won't know until you grab a tape and get some measurements.
