It was never once indicated if it was the customers fault or not, Thats somewhat irrelevant, the point is and was; It makes it very difficult for Apple to move forward in the process without actually having all the pieces or parts. I don’t know what their policy is, but I can imagine they’re very stringent about having all the hardware necessary to make a proper evaluation to compete a repair and assess the situation.
You’re Still misunderstanding. You just listed a Reddit article from one individual with the display popping off, the _
first generation Apple Watch_ actually had Apple offering an entire program to repair the Apple Watch due to a swollen battery. A Swollen battery can happen with [any] product that uses a rechargeable lithium battery, but this was a widespread issue with the first generation Apple Watch which caused Apple to react. Two different things.
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/28/original-apple-watch-repairs-extended/