Could be. I feel like #1 is a bad excuse though, since you can easily just have the player choke up an inch.
That said, it's an easy enough experiment to do on your own - just choke up an inch on all your driver swings and see if it helps contact. You also can't make a shorter shaft longer, so it seems to make some sense to me to start with standard length and cut it down if you need to.
Choking up simply isn't the same.