That baffle would meet spec; looks about 8". The unit is 10" deep. Mits offered their own for the commercial models.
One of those curved tarp roofs, curving to the ground, with a 2 foot peak above the unit, a giant semicircle would work, but it would be big. These things were never really intended for our environment - the heating capability is pretty recent. The fact it extracts heat at -10 almost seems magical.
One could mount the outdoor unit on the wall, 2 feet below a roof overhang of a good size and avoid most falling snow and any 6 foot pile ups from the ground. Not super attractive unless it's behind the house; but no worse than a window air conditioner. Pretty common look for multi-story buildings overseas.
While sucking in snow is an issue, air humidity is at its peak then too, so the coils are gonna ice quickly anyhow with the amount of air its moving. Overall it probably doesn't change the defrosting behavior much except in extreme circumstances.
FYI: I don't know what they altered as the spec guide doesn't detail it, but the new Fujitsu model 3's coming out with an outdoor pan heater have solved the efficiency issues.
The HSPF use to drop nearly 4 points with a pan heater, now it drops 0.4. The physical pictures don't look radically different so it's likely logic based.
The 9RLS3 is 33.0 SEER and 14.2 HSPF / 13.8 with pan heater. The indoor coil is significantly larger and 50% heavier form 20 to 30lbs. Interesting is the dehumidifying rate goes down.
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