How come your device, which should not be more than a few months old, be in such a state - for example - "kickstand will probably only last a month or so..."? This is not an impertinent question; I am genuinely interested. I ask because I bought my device on June 20th and it looks, feels and operates like as it is brand new! And, I push it a lot.
Not even 1 month old. The first issue with the kickstand was that it is loose. Once opened, no matter the position, there is about 0.5 to 1cm of play, so if I pick it up and give it a little shake, the kickstand shakes up and down and rattles. Not too long later, I've found that where the kickstand meets the centre of the device, there is a silver strip. This is just metallic tape, and in the centre, the tape goes into the surface, basically it gives the kickstand support and stops it from bowing. My tape is coming off, meaning that when I now close the kickstand, it bends out from the device in the centre by about 1-2mm and if I press on it, it kind of tries to re-seal itself with the tape, and will then be flush, however I have to do this every time. I think this is cause by changing the angle of the kickstand via the centre, not the edges. For instance if you;ve got it balanced on one leg, and just press it forward, it exerts pressure on the kickstand, not the hinges. Not entirely impressed.
Anyway, today's news is that I've a brand new pen in the post. Free of charge, no need to return the old one. Today my side buttons stopped working, but the other features of the pen continued to work. MS think it;s a hardware fault and nothing software side can resolve the issue. So I've a brand new pen in the post, and can keep the old one which still writes just fine, just doesn't have the ability of using the side buttons.