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Curious why does it need to wait so long to reorient? I thought it was going to crash and in last few hundred feet, it flipped! Can it orient straight - way up in the air like Falcon boosters?

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Reorienting requires the use of main engines. You want to relight them only once, to ensure that the header tanks and the "downcomer" remain full. Additionally you want to burn off as much speed as possible with the bellyflop, so flipping vertical as late as possible. All combined this means combining the landing burn with the flip is best, as close to landing as possible.

It has a cute nickname, “Suicide Burn”.

Why is it efficient? [https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/2z534g/...]

Guessing we won't be using constant altitude landings in real life?

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