the distances packages travel over there might not be a good barometer of what to expect in the U.S.
To 57 different countries, including Australia, New Zealand, The USA, Hong Kong, China and The Russian Federation. so considerably further than GF have yet shipped any of their lasers. Many of the items much larger, more fragile than lasers or laser tubes and considerably more expensive.

This reads as if you would expect a high number of damaged packages with such dramatic words and maybe higher than what you quote above.
Simply because most sensible folks who work with or sell lasers realise that sending them out filled is plain stupid at best and even when empty likely to end badly at worst.

Here are some "end user experiences"

Seriously considering returning my GF after they replaced my first unit and second unit has misaligned gantry. What are the viable alternatives? I don’t mind paying more, but I want something that isn’t going to fall apart.
My glowforge has been calibrating for about 15 minutes. I've rebooted 2 times. Anyone else have this problem?
Can anyone here help with a alignment issue? I calibrate the machine no problem, upload my art no problem, and then it shifts the image slightly to the right when it starts to lasering. It looks fine in the preview, and then once it cuts it shows the cut line to be shifted. Help?
any idea why the engrave looks funky in the glowforge app?
I received an email from Glowforge with a password to the training manual but it was only a 20 page Laser safety manual. Did others get their $1K in training as the email said?
Until tonight I have only put 1-2 smaller things on the glowforge, and tonight I have uploaded several files, some larger with engraving. With multiple files, how long should you expect the "preparing your design" step to take, it's been about 5 minutes and its still not finished. Is this normal, or is there anything I should do differently?
Have any non US folks received their Glowforge yet?Mine isn’t due to be ‘shipped’ until the end of Feb. Despite ordering in the first two days and being told that international shipments would start in October.
I would have cancelled, but there really is no quality alternative for the price i paid - even with the ludicrous $750 shipping i have to pay!
We got my Glowforge about a week ago and we are running into a snag. We are trying to engrave a something that is 8x8. We can preview it but when we tell it to print it gives an error after about 5 minutes. Has anyone else run it to this or know how to get around it? Thanks in advance for your help.
How much time take to connect? It's taking so long I'm worried
Just a selection from Decembers posts from people who actually HAVE their machines