In that photo of Alpena Bahn, the forward bogey on the first car is technically the zero car. The interface between that forward-most bogey and the one supporting the bulk of the car above it only has rotation about one degree of freedom (rotation about the direction of travel). The rest of the couplings all have three degrees of freedom.
Millennium Force is the same way:
As Crazycoaster mentioned, B&M do it slightly differently. Typically, they just join rows one and two together allowing only one degree of freedom of rotation, so technically they would be one car if we were still thinking about their trains like we would Intamin or Schwarzkopf. This interface is easy to see in a vertical loop and also on dive machine's holding brakes - note the seat structures and how they are parallel in the first two rows, but slightly angled throughout the rest of the train (the dive machine is tough to see, but the first two rows are well over the edge while the third still hasn't crested):
So why does Alpengeist have an extra row with no seats mounted on it? I vaguely recall reading somewhere YEARS ago that B&M designed those trains as such to mitigate any excess stresses caused by the insane forces on the ride (although don't quote me on that because I could be completely wrong in my years old recollection).
Arrow and old Vekoma also had a somewhat unique method of joining their cars, although instead of trailering them, they tractored them. Essentially, they did what Intamin and Schrwarzkopf have and flipped it around such that the 1 DOF section is the last pair of bogeys:
It does the same thing, but it's just packaged a bit differently.
Regarding this new generation's trains...I'd wager that the length or spacing between each row is due to clearance as the seats rotate and the zero car is so far ahead of the first row just because Vekoma wanted to utilize common parts instead of designing a unique coupling just for the zero car.