Glenn, I won the IM 78's in a 171 cm length. These are the best mid fat/allmountain skis that I have ever owned. They hold great on hardpack, the float nicely in up to a foot of fresh, they have a tight turning radius enabling tight carved turns, and they are wonderful ski in chop and crud, and lastly they are great skis in bumps.
I have not owned a mid fat ski for several years. Typically I ski on Slalom carvers most of the time (in up to 6-10 inches of fresh snow) and then I ski on fat powder skis when there is a big dump. I bought a home in Montana this season and I have found that a 75-80mm ski under foot and at a shorter length than my long wide powder skis has been better and more enjoyable in the lighter Montana powder. The dumps are never huge like in Tahoe (where I was regularly skiing) and I really never need a full bore powder ski. The 78's are great and they are the perfect ski.
The question as to what ski for you depends a lot on where you will ski most often and what kind of conditions you will be skiing in and what kind of terrain you will be skiing.
I personally think it will be hard to find another one ski quiver as good and as versatile as the IM 78.
The other skis that come to mind are:
The Fischer Watea 78
The Stockli Rotor (hard to find a demo and in general a hard ski to find to buy)
If you want to go up a liitel in width a few more skis come to mind:
Fischer Cold Heat (82 underfoot)
Fischer Watea 84
Head IM 82
The cold Heat and the Im 82 bot have a GS type feel, bust crud incredibly but are on the stiffer side and therefore are less forgiving in bumps and challenging off piste terrain (if you get back they will wnat to run out from under you). The Watea 84 has less performance on hard snow.
Having said all of this, if I lived on the east coast and skied mostly in Vermont on Hardpack, I would own a slalom carver with some all mountain capability. My favorite is the Head Super Shape, a truly great ski. You might look into the Super Shape Magnum (a little wider under foot (70mm vs 66 on the SS), as well as the Dynastar Contact Ltd. The Fischer RX8 Fire is also another wonderful and forgiving all mountain front side carver with a little less top end performance as the previous ones mentioned. I also own a pair of Fischer Progressors and this is a great ski with all mountain capability. At 175 and 180 lengths it feels like a cheater GS ski (a much tighter turn radius that a race GS ski) and at the 170 length it starts to feel like an all mountain slalom carver.
As for length, the same ski will take on very different characteristics at different lengths. It really comes down to what you want the ski to excel at in the length that you buy. Shorter skis will carve tighter turns, be better in carving and brush carving bumps (but may be harder if you are pivoting in the bumps), will give up some stability at speed, and will challenge your fore aft balance on choppy off piste conditions more.
I? hope that helps some.
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