Chad-
Nothing has been changed on my #450 from the way it came from the factory. These 2-stage blowers should EASILY throw out to a 15-20' distance and could put snow up on the roof of my single-story house. (If we'd ever get some snow!!)
Something is not "right" with your blower.
Could the belt be slipping? Do you have the tension pulley flipped to the "over-center" position so that the belt is tight? If so, I would then remove the belt and make sure that the pulley on the back of the blower is connected to the auger and blower fan on the front of the blower. Finally, one easy "oops" is to put the belt too deep on the tractor's PTO so that it is actually BEHIND the PTO pulley. Make sure the belt is in the PTO-pulley groove. BTDT!
As far as the lift for your blower, I can tell you that the bracket on mine will "flop" to that 9-O'clock position if I remove the lift rod like you have in the photo. Grab onto it and try twisting it (with your hand) in a counter-clockwise position. Does it move to about 7-O'Clock before it actually trys to start lifting the blower? If it does, then you're fine. There is supposed to be some "float" in the setup. If not, you may have to do what someone did to mine, which was remove the bracket and reweld it to a more safe 7-O'Clock-ish position.
Either way the lift-set up on these blowers are a poor design. The blowers are FANTASTIC though, so my "someday" plan is to swap out this archaic lift-system for something simple with a Hydraulic ram that runs off of the front outlets on the tractor.