I agree that the size given by the NHC and others was very deceptive, they measured the distance from the center to the farthest tropical storm force winds that they could find, then doubled that and gave it as the size. Completely wrong since the NE quadrant had some flung off convection and winds and the SW was very tight and small. The 80 mph surface wind gusts up in New England was from flung off convection despite not much rain overall. The jet on the north side was strong enough for 100G120 out of the east on Mount Washington (about 350 miles north of the center).
The cold front provided very little moisture. The vast majority of rainfall came from Sandy pushing moisture into the cold air. I had 5.5 inches in my normally dry valley in the SW quadrant of the storm. That was with a NW wind (normally downsloping and dry).
You are right that there were no hurricane force winds at landfall, not even by plane and definitely not on land. The closest I saw was 70 sustained but unconfirmed on the very top of the Bay Bridge.
The power of Sandy was coincidental from the high tide, the shape of NY/NJ coastline and the 100 mile width of east winds pushing water in that direction. Sandy moving west was sheer coincidence from the timing of the short wave to the SW.