We already have 2nd-hand confirmation from one of our unnamed Weber reps in harris92's post a little while back that confirmed bare metal is a defect. If someone has bare metal the issue needs to be pushed further.
And there is a glaring contradiction in that CSR's response.
"This area should be bare metal" contradicts with the very next sentence that claims "part of the production process ... is a black undercoat."I'd respond, noting that!
The unfortunate challenge with ALL of this is with making a warranty claim depending on the corroborating evidence of amateur pictures. Absent some carefully worded text, a bad pic seems to lead to getting screwed.
Here's a few pix I just took of an older grill, unused (but slightly damaged by human-owner error.)
In this first shot, you're looking at both shiny and dull black. The shiny is indeed smooth like the inside of a bowl, or underside of a lid. The dull is, I guess primer? No bare metal.
In this socket it's basically all dull black.
It's an AT-code grill. 4 yrs ago, no paint at all inside the sockets, although there's clearly a layer of dull black primer AND shiny black under the blue. It's just that the shiny black does not extend to the insides of the sockets.