Baguette 'tradition' recipe results

Following the Cordon Bleu baking book which is one of the few books which acknowledges ‘la baguette tradition’, a type of baguette introduced to French bakeries in 1993, I also started out by making the particular levain they use as well to make their recipe using all ingredients as per the book.

The photos show what we got. We got a very wet and almostdead feeling dough that was very difficult to shape at all at the faconnage stage. But we somehow managed. What we got in the end was a delicious baguette. Finally, after years of trying different recipes, this one finally got the ‘tradition’ flavour, crust, crumb, and texture right. And this despite that dead-feeling dough. The problem is they were extremely small. Not quite a ficelle, but not too far off. It looked promising in the oven but then didn’t stay risen. Any ideas what could have happened? Or what we can try next time? Is it simply a question of having tried to make too many baguettes and that maybe only making 2 would be better?

Thanks for any help. If you happen to know of any people/sites we can ask about this online who may be experts in this, please let me know. You may know a blogger, etc who isn’t here but is really into this kind of baking.