No, not really, though things aren't always as they seem. Sorry to hear this, not that I'm surprised WRT SD's service and MS's 'attitude', though I wish you had emailed me before 'throwing in the towel'. My experience with SD was abysmal, with Tom Danley and John Halliburton being the exceptions, and even they appeared to have their 'hands tied' to a great extent by Brad, the owner. WRT MS, I've only 'crossed swords' with him on technical issues on the various forums, mostly back when he was ~clueless, and WRT his lack of response to your emails I'm betting it's more about following Brad's business practice guidelines than his lack of interest or desire to help.

Now that it's gone, I can only speculate about what the real problem(s) was, but normally the only two ways this type of problem occurs (assuming nothing's loose/bent to start with) is either XOing it too high and/or with too low a slope order since at some HF point the system is moving so fast it literally slings itself to destruction. The other common problem is one of increasing gain too much. The vast majority of folks (including most FOH mixing 'engineers') are so used to hearing high distortion LF/midbass that they describe a very low distortion system such as a CB or well executed horn as 'dry' or 'sterile' sounding and/or lacking in 'detail', so they keep EQing it upwards until it sounds 'right' to them (audibly distorted). This leaves little/no dynamic headroom, ergo it mechanically 'hard clips', usually stretching or popping belts and/or bending the arms and/or hardware.

WRT it not being 'that impressive output wise', its capability far exceeds what can be experienced in a relatively nearfield app such as your room presents without immediate lifelong hearing impairment, so not sure what performance aspect you're referring to. Of course if you're already hearing impaired to some extent (as so many Americans are), then it's a moot point.

Regardless, after looking at your HT room, a low Q IB or well stuffed low Fc TL is a far better choice since much of the CB's LF forte' of ~flat response to