iPod iskin users beware!

hey guys,
just a little question and potential warning:

a couple of days after buying my 20gig ipod (with colour screen), i put it in one of those iskin cases and left used it in its case untill now. now recently i have bought a couple of 3g ipods (coz i love them), one of which had always lived in an iskin case. it was of course totally scratch-free (quite a feat for a three year old ipod!), however the plastic and metal sections of the ipod, despite being fixed securly together, were out of sync with eachother, so that on one side there was a overhang of metal, while on the other there was an overhang of plastic! the metal overhang was so out of sync that you could actually see inside the ipod!!!!!

Anyway, recently i got bored of my iskin case and fancied using my colour ipod naked, however upon taking it out of the case, my ipod was showing similar simptoms, as the 2 sections of the ipod were out of sync almost as if the ipod had been subjected to being twisted in opposite directions! obviously my colour ipod is in a far better state than the 3G, but i was wondering if this was a result of using the iskin, as the ipod was totally fine before i put it in the case! just as a control, i bought my sister a colour ipod when i bought mine, she never put it in a case and despite being scratched, it is totally in sync.....weird!

has anyone else experienced this? or have any thoughts/ideas?

just an update...i have been using an old 3G case with my 4G Colour for a while now and this seems to be a much better option.

Also, while on the bus yesterday I pushed on the case of my 4G (trying to push the two halves bcak in line), and "click" they came together, I know it was particularly cold yesterday so maybe the metal had shrunk a little, thereby allowing me to, push the two sides together again! It did make me wonder though, are ipods actually that well made? so many of my friends (almost everyone i know has an ipod of some description) are complaining about their ipods, from batteries to scratches to case problems to dead hard drives...the list goes on! We mother our ipods and they break...weird, still doesn't stop me waiting anxiously for April 1st though

hmmmm, i'd agree that they are meant to be a disposable device, however I can't see them lasting for five years.

I have 2 3G's that are both about 3 years old, and they will just about cope with giving me enough juice to listen while on the way to work and back. Yes you could use them for probably a couple more years...as a hard drive, or a static player thats plugged in all the time (connected up to a hifi for example), but this isn't what their made for, hey, i could use one for another 30 years...as a paperweight.

Keeping your ipod for 5 years as a portable device would involve considerable mothering of it, yet its intended to be able to cope with an active lifestyle, you're meant to throw it in your pocket and use it, however by doing so, you'll need a new one in much less than 5 years.

NB my experience is from 3G's upwards, i wonder whether apple's initial ipods were built to last more than their more recent ones?

well i think that maybe the iskin fails to let the ipod dissipate heat properly, therebye warming up the metal causing it to expand a little. Perhaps in this state slight compression could have caused the two sides to come out of sync, and thus i could only click it back when the ipod was really cold and the metal and shrunk a little.

Truth is that you wouldn't know about it unless you took the ipod out of the iskin case, which, i'm guessing, most people don't.