I was beginning to feel very alone watching what appeared to me to be a major hurricane about to make landfall.

Yeah I caught that in the discussion too and wondered what little story was behind that. I wonder if it had anything to do with Stewart's earlier writeup on the models.

I realize the eye has not cleared out completely but look at the shape. I've never seen a hurricane this season slough off all of the irregular edges of convection to achive that symmetric puffed donut look, without being a major hurricane and usually not until they get to Cat 4 intensity (had to edit here...this reads ambiguously but no I was not saying Beta is now a Cat 4, no way, only that I've only seen that shape before on Cat 4s).

It just started moving faster. The curved coastline it is approaching is allowing the inner core to remain intact closer to landfall.