As there are several of you in Singapore with this problem, maybe you could persuade the local Swarovski dealer to gather them all up and send them back all together at Swarovski's expense.
I have heard that in the UK, that's what they do. About once a month they apparently collect them all from the dealers in a region and send them to Austria in bulk together and it just kind of depends where you are in that cycle as to how long it takes to get them back. As I said above I returned them to the dealer, who is about an hours drive away from where I live (and conveniently not too far from a good birding location).
Much more worrying of course is that they will replace them with the same armour only to need the same treatment again in three or four or five years, as you have eloquently pointed out.
I have just connected with and gotten in touch with another user who has sent back his binos before for armour replacement and the problem has recurred (surprise, surprise!)
In response to complaints about the issue, the local distributor told him that he has never heard anything of the sort. To me, it sounds like a similar refrain to what some Swarovski dealers and their affiliates previously parroted on this forum to deny the existence of this issue.
Swarovski customer service have told me that it's company policy not to cover the first leg of shipping to Swarovski location (not including their local distributor).
I'm not sure if that's worth pursuing when they have no authority nor incentive to effect change or take initiative.
If there's anyone worth persuading, it's the Swarovski Optik top management who I have reached out to recently (including their new CEO Mr Stefan Schwarz) to raise the issue, provide evidence (photos, these forum threads), and ask for a solution. I will update when I hear back from them, hopefully on a concrete, global solution/action plan, (e.g. updates to the material to permanently resolve the problem, coupled with a product recall or repair arrangement through its distributor/dealer network that does not require the customer to fork out for international shipping).
What would help now is for more affected users to come forward here to share their own experience, and information & photos of the disintegrated armour, to document and build a repository of undeniable proof of the problem.
Comments from prospective buyers putting off new/repeat purchases or users considering migrating to other brands due to this issue will also emphasise the impact this issue has, beyond those directly affected.
