Lucia, I won't lie, the split ends thing did kind of make me rethink growing my hair out longer. Last year when I was hip length I didn't have an issue with tangling at the ends due to splits.
My beautician pretty much said the same thing. I freaked out as the ends were tangling as she was combing it out, but my beautician said that it wasn't a big deal; my hair just needed a little trimming. The ends of my hair are several years old. The hair on my ends have had several years worth of wear and tear. It's almost impossible to avoid having some damage no matter what I do. I let her cut off all of the damage and now my hair is fine. I encouraged her to cut off as much that needed to be cut of; I wanted all of the damage gone.
Since my ends are now fresh and split free it's possible that my hair may grow longer than classic if my body allows it. I should be able to retain length faster now. But this experience did make me think about growing it longer....
I'm not sure if I'll cut back to hip length though. Now, I don't know what I'm going to do with my hair.