Bent dynafit toe pinchers

I'm afraid I have to continue the parade of dynafit problems popping up on Random Tracks. I somehow bent the front toe pinchers/wings on my vertical STs.

I lent my skis out to a buddy for a few months while I was away. When I got them back and locked the boot into the front pinchers/wings and began adjusting the clearance for the heel piece, I notice that the tech fittings on the rear of the boot and the prongs in the rear heelpiece were misaligned by nearly a half inch. I swapped left boot for right boot on the offending ski and confirm that it's something about the bindings, not the boots.

I went skiing the next day and was prereleasing constantly from the bent binding until I locked the release out a the toe. Fortunately Pro Ski had a spare toe piece that they are willing to sell for a reasonable price, so I was able to get a working toe pincher again.

My buddy doesn't remember committing any especially egregious skinning trauma, but also says that he was skiing in alpine mode with the release locked out at the toe, so neither would he have had the incessant prereleasing I was getting as a side effect. Has anyone seen this before or have any idea how this could have happened? See the attached image. The red boxes show where the frame was bent. The left pincher is torqued towards the top of the photo, the right pincher is torqued towards the bottom.

Also, Salewa sounds willing to take a look at this as a warranty issue, but wants the whole front assembly (including the baseplate/ski crampon mount) sent in, but I don't think I can bear to be away from my babies for that long. Does anyone have an extra Vertical ST front baseplate they'd sell me, so that I can swap that out and send Salewa the one beneath the toe piece that bent?

Sorry to hear about this -- I've never come across anything like this before. But for the warranty return, I can definitely see how Salewa would like to have both the toe piece and the mounting base plate. However, doesn't Pro Ski have a spare Comfort / Vertical ST base plate? If not, you could also just buy a spare set from Salewa. Although the current Comfort / Vertical ST base plate is pretty much indestructable, the original generation Comfort base plate could crack, so the replacement parts are often available.