David did have short buzz-cut hair in book three. He's let it grow out a bit. I see him as still trying to figure out what his "image" is.

I have been trying to make a distinction between dueling spells and actual combat (sort of what Max was teaching Alex in book two -- the difference between sport dueling and "wizard-dueling"). Mostly I've been defining it as "You can't use potentially lethal spells in sport dueling," but as Alexandra gets more into both kinds of dueling in book four, I need to write it in a bit more detail.