Hi Munk, Welcome to the RV.Net Forums. You'll find a great amount of knowledge here and some very helpful members.
In my opinion you are as well off using wirenuts/twistlocks/merretts, what ever you want to call them, especially if you want to make a change sometime in the future.
I'm not sure exactly what the fitting you are referring to looks like but that's not unusual, there are so many crimp fitting today. If you are interested and get over toward Orange County, look up Orvac Electronics. They are at 1645 E. Orangethorpe Ave, phone # 714 871 1020, they have a huge display of crimp type fittings. They also have an online catalog. They have been slow to add stuff to the catalog but what your looking for may be there.
If you take a look at the forums by title you'll find a great help section Titled; Forum Posting Help and Support. Look in that for, RV.NET Tutorials and Picture related FAQs. I'd love to know what your talking about and a photo always helps.
Also, when asking for help with your water heater, don't just say "water heater", give the Brand Name, Model and if you know it the Year. There will be someone with the same year and model WH, Converter/charger, Leveling system and can help if they know make and model, they may have had the same problem you did and know a good solution.
In addition to help posting pictures, there is a whole section on doing searches, that's another good read. Some members will answer a question by referring you to the search engine, so you might as well learn about searches too.
So let us know what RV you have and fire away with the questions.
"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to go". R. L. Stevenson
David Bishop
2002 Winnebago Adventurer 32V
2009 GMC Canyon
Roadmaster 5000
BrakeBuddy Classic II