Honestly, the woman I talked to at U.S. stove seemed more disinterested than anything else, and I probably came off sounding a little crazy. She said the flashing pressure light was a normal self-check, and I essentially told her that was fine, if she'd explain exactly what conditions trigger it. I told her that I was an engineer, familiar with electronics, and that somewhere there was a service manual or document that explained exactly what conditions triggered the light, etc. I.E. the microprocessor on the board must be lighting it in response to SOMETHING. At the point when I called them, the drilled hole area was just a little warped, not torn, so I didn't make much of that part at all. I'll definitely call them again.
To be fair, I am burning about a bag of pellets a day, so the stove is working hard. I think I noticed the warping starting with some crappy pennington nature's heat pellets, running on 3 or 4. There was a bunch of crap built up in that area that was glowing during operation, so maybe it was depositing something flammable there, and burned it?
The damage seems to have pretty much stopped at this point, and doesn't seem to cause any structural issues. The exhaust passage above the damaged plate looks pretty good to me, etc. Personally, I think there was some sort of stress relief/metallurgy problem, since the drilled area twisted on its center.
