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still won't say that routes are necessarily easier for short people, but i do agree that it should not be an excuse. sometimes it's really neat to see how shorter people do moves. i am 5'2" (used to say 5'3", but was recently proven wrong at the doctor's), and i think i luck out a lot because i have decent flexibility. a short, inflexible, stocky climber might be screwed on some routes or boulder problems.

Holds being farther apart is most certainly a primary part of a route being hard.

Say you have two enormous two handed jugs and one set of feet below the first jug. Generally, given no silly what-if circumstances, the further apart you place the two holds, the more difficult the move. So, when you can hold onto the hold, the farther you have to move, the more difficult said move will be.

As far as the leverage thing, well, it certainly seems, given equal climbing ability, that shorter people have an easier time with something like, say, doing pull-ups (not an entirely irrelevant example), since they have less distance to pull their torso.