The downside of the connector is to degrade the heat flow through the leads - a major element of the heat sinking.
A couple of days ago I noticed power out dropped to 2W.? It took one hour to open the unit, separate the boards (I made extender cables to allow operation with separated boards) find the hot BS170, replace it and reassemble the QMX. I do have a vacuum de-soldering station that makes removal easy.
