pecheckler,my monitor looks pretty much as yours,it also has an august 2012 man date.
very happy with this monitor,the only change i made was use an icm profile that is posted on tft central.
much more there than funny to read,sign up and see for yourself.
as for ek,they will survive and that matters to me not.
i do find interesting that they will not spec their blocks to be milled at a slower feed rate for a better result,but have the time to put some euro circle jerk patterns...
that i can attest to.
i will say this,red does not do the plating himself,but facilitates the work through a plater in texas.
i use a nickel\chrome plated heatkiller block from red,as well as a nickel\chrome plated ek classified chipset block that was stripped beforehand of eks crap job.