First of all. Great to see you here, Guru.
The damage to the socket was not done by the kit. The pins are small and the pins in the socket were REALLY bent. It looks like what happens if you put a rom in the socket and it catches just right and bends the pin at a funny angle.
I actually really like these kit pins. They install soooooo easily into the sockets. When the first batch was shipping there was almost a sky-is-falling mentality because of broken pins. I'm glad we did not switch because trust me, the standard pins we used on the protos are HORRIBLE.
Surprisingly enough. I had a proto installed on a b-board for months. But when I put a new kit on the pcb it installs and works great. The bigger pins didn't bent the sockets enough to cause a loss of contact.