Our 2017 RP179 does not have the awning reinforcement. It was not an option back then.

You do have to have the courage to drill holes all the way through your camper walls (I drilled 7 holes), but once you get over that, it is pretty easy to do.  

It doesn't take much if the RV dealer made the change from 2016 to 2017. The Manufacturer Certificate of Origin document is easily changed by the manufacturer/dealership. Once it is titled to an owner, it is almost impossible to change without a lot of paperwork depending on the state.

Hard to say. We purchased our 179 brand new on a cold, windy November day. It was a Hood River in the green color scheme and we were told it was a 2017 and that's how it was titled. Later that spring, when one of our slide motors quit working and we dropped it off for repair, we saw the blue Rpods and those were 2017 models. Hmmm... I really didn't think much of it until I started to read reports of sagging floors, bent frames, and a host of other issues on post 2016 models, none of which we had experienced. When I checked the date of manufacture for our unit, it was built in May of 2016. So my gut tells me the dealer marketed it as a 2017 in order to get the 2017 price increase instead of discounting a 2016 as left over inventory.

Fast forward to February of 2023 when we sold the 179. The purchaser specifically bought it over lower priced, true blue 2017 models on Craigslist because of its manufacture date and the research he did on Rpods.