Having received my Cheboygan's today, I believe that the problem is not so much that the tree is wrapped too tightly - I think the issue is the way the end of the foam strip was tucked in to complete the wrap. In tucking the end in, the strip most likely had to be pulled even tighter and then the end tucked in. This would most definitely stress the tree way more than it should be.

That said, I was able to get the foam off all five of our pieces, being very careful in the process. Tried to cut one off, but wasn't getting anywhere with razoe blading it and went back to carefully unwrapping it. (FWIW trivia dept: one of my trees was wrapped by a leftie - the wrapping was counter clockwise instead of clockwise as most were.) No flakes or chips in the bag or around the light. However, taking a small flashlight to really look at things, 3 of the lights have what may be stress fractures. No obvious breaks, but there are definite lines where the paint has cracked.

The mis-matched numbers are in all probability the fault of the folks at El Cajon. Happened when the lights were taken out of the boxes to be signed and didn't get back into the right box.