IDE and floppy connectors brittle?

Ok, this has been bothering me for months now. I was redoing the cables in my old system and pulled the floppy cable off the board slightly crooked, and the side of the connector broke. Not the end of the world, it still works. I passed it off as "the board is 2 years old, subject to heat. Maybe the plastic got brittle that way." A few months ago the same thing happened to me at work, this time I was putting a cable in, and it was a HDD cable. I had barely applied any pressure, and it snapped the side off the connector. I didn't think anything of it and hauled out the board, put it in the RMA pile, and grabbed another one. Last week, it happened again, on a floppy connector. I know that like everyone else, that after you get into a routine you sometimes get careless, and you make mistakes. My problem, is that this is only happening with ASUS boards. I've built well over 1500 systems, no problems with the MSI, or Aopen boards we sell, just the ASUS. Anyone have this happen to them or is it just me?

stop using the hammer on the ASUS boards!

no...seriously, I'm a pretty big ASUS fan, and have assembled a fraction of yours, but I've never even heard of breaking one.

There is a problem with the quality of the plastic Asus is using. I broke a HSF retainer on my ASUS P4T motherboard back in October. I was using direct pressure (straight down) and was taking care because it looks fragile even if it's not. I work in manufacturing for Canon and I handle Plastic Parts all day long. Some of them are made right in the plant, others are contracted but they use a plastic called delrin. It is good stuff and cheap (that socket would cost about $.05/ea). I have no idea what ASUS is doing but they need to straighten up. There is a Quality Assurance Group that you may recognize from retail packages (ISO 9001 or ISO 9002). When you see this on a product that you buy you are assured that the company is forced to follow very strict Quality guidelines to be able to place the seal on their products. It is an equivalent of the good housekeeping seal. These guys actually come to the plant twice a year and quiz employees on quality standards, check environmental practices, engineering standards, etc. I don't remember seeing this seal on ASUS products. If it's not there then we need to start reconsidering ASUS as a product for recommendation.

My P3C-D has ISO 9002 certification.