Yep yep, I say toss the hide too. It is a bit large for him, they should have to squish themselves to lay in a hide. I don't have hides for nearly all of my snakes. Only the babies get hides. If he's eating normally there's no reason to change his set up. As long as he's in a room that doesn't get a lot of traffic and he can get under the paper towels he should be fine.
As for the comment that you could change your feeding, I'm guessing their advice would be to feed 1 rat? If you can only get mice, or he only eats mice there is nothing wrong feeding him 2-3 at a time. 3 might be a bit much, but maybe not depending on his weight and the size of the mice. Although, he doesn't look fat, so I think 2-3 at a time once a week is fine.