In my experience many desirable retro rigid bikes have very short headtubes. I used to see much bigger drops from saddle height to handlebar height in the heyday of race-y steel hardtails. Especially obvious with the first suspension corrected designs. The designers felt the need to compensate for the rise of the front end through suspension with a short headtube.
Notable exception to this is the Kona brand of steel hardtails, and to be frank, there's quite a few of those around on this board. Compared to the long headtube Kona's modern headtubes are shorter.
BTW I see the same thingh now on 29ers where the headtubes on frames get very short to "compensate" for the larger wheel diameter.
Enjoy!!