Thread is closed now. However, there's two sides on this one. What someone is expecting to get is something other than what's common. When I got my first Luke back in 2005 I already joined this forums so I knew about the stress cracks and I knew they'd do no harm to the guitar. If I didn't knew that, I'd be 'wow, I spend around 2000 dollars on a guitar and this isn't what i'd be expecting'.
On my Luke it was there but i read a lot on it and it wasn't a problem. But for a lot of people this would be a problem and they'd make a complain to CS about it. If CS would say 'hey, that's what you get with a tight pocked joint' this kind of customers would not not understand. Even if CS would say it doesn't affect the body of the guitar and it's only in the finish of the guitar, EBMM will get the blame.
That's not fair, but every guitar enthusiast is different, and has different standards.