Hi Josh, thanks for the feedback! Several of your points are related to the battery, so I'll address them here:
The Torx screws on the outside are the unfortunate side effect of regulatory agencies being really out of touch with the repair world. You've probably noticed that all the other screws on the device are Phillips and they're all the same size (no way to get them mixed up). However, when it came to compliance and safety certification, we were told that "batteries cannot be easily accessible by end users", and that T10 Torx screws are non-standard enough to count as Security Screws. This really bothers us, but rather than limit our available sales outlets (most online and retail sellers will not sell products if they don't meet UL safety certifications), we opted to give you the option to replace those rear case screws yourself. Here's a McMaster link to a Phillips screw that will fit that spot exactly: [link|https://www.mcmaster.com/95836A205/|https://www.mcmaster.com/95836A205/|new_window=true] Additionally, I cant be too explicit, but if you look around the packaging for your Soldering Station or Soldering Toolkit, you may find some "liberating" accessories that help with this situation.
As far as the battery connector, we wanted to use both robust and standard connectors so that people could use our battery pack elsewhere (there are a surprising amount of uses for a 12V, 100W Li-Ion battery pack!). That's also why there is no discharge balancer, as that would require either adding considerable complexity and size to the battery pack, or additional wires onto the battery pack connection, which would make it much harder to use our pack in other applications. On the end of those two wires are standard Quick-Disconnect Spade fittings, held in that blue plastic piece for alignment and ease of removal. If you were to try and pull those connections off the board directly, it would be incredibly difficult, which why we put the leverage knobs on the housing, and we include a spudger (the tool those prying tabs were made for) in every power station and soldering toolkit.
The cells inside our battery pack are 18650 batteries, which each have a steel casing around them. The shrinkwrap exists to hold them together neatly and safely, but the risk of actually puncturing one of the cells is actually quite low (especially compared to soft-sided polymer packs). We opted for 18650s specifically for this safety reason and to try and increase the adoption of standard battery sizes.