Wolfgang Pauli once said to Niels Bohr after a lecture "Your idea is crazy, but is it crazy enough?".
My kit arrived Monday, and I've been finishing a 1.25m repeater before starting (think of a horse hanging their own carrot on a stick), but I opened the box to examine the packaging.
It would seem to be difficult to damage the chip once it's mounted on a board with ~1000 uf of bypassing. TI puts its usual 2 kV input static protection on this chip. So one has to work some to break the thing.
Hans, if you don't see such a problem with the QRP Labs assembly crew, I would posit that the issue could be static buildup inside the packaging, during shipping. Every little jostle rubbing the bubble wrap on the cardboard...
A possible solution could be as simple as antistatic bagging the main board for shipping.
Chuck AI7SY