I'm in the same boat as you Odin, I haven't had any issues other than opperator error.Sometimes im an idiot.
Now this is only speculation, but the futer engineer in me says the AE engineers left th rear pins partialy exposed so debree, small dust and what-not, can escape rathere than causuing wear on the end of the pins, where they generally wear out, because the are captured by a ring or something.