Nevermind I answered this myself. I'm adding to this so that it pops up in search engines if anyone else has the same question.
Turns out the forks on the bike are corrected and offset to compensate for 80mm travel forks, and the frame is designed to be used with forks that have something between 80mm and 100mm of travel.
So that feeling was indeed correlated with the fact that I have never ridden a 29er mtb. I verified this by actually trying to "overturn" and throw the bike off balance (at low speed so nothing gets damaged).
I just had to verify the math.
My only concerns now are the reports of frame crackage at the chainstays.