I think most of these scratches are user errors
Yeah, stop saying that.
I don't know about the scratches, because I have none yet, but seriously, I can chip away the paint with my fingernails. No other device I ever had was this fragile.
It's not surprising in this case people get scratches. Whatever the painting process for the SFPro2, it results in a terribly delicate coating. Google around for examples.
Just grabbing the device with by bare hands seems to weaken the paint. I don't know if it's sweat, heat, whatever, but it results in a slight decoloration. Also I often use my Surface Pro in bed, letting it rest on a corner while I grab the opposite edge with my hand. Well, that corner obviously is subject to some wear (I may e.g. rotate the Surface). However, it rests _on a friggin bed_ . Not exactly bedrock. Yet, the paint is also chipping away on that corner.
I already knew about these issues before buying the device and didn't care, because
a) I generanlly don't give a damn at how my devices look, and in fact, consider a "used" look a good thing because it deters potential thieves (living in Spain, this is quite useful),
b) I also thought people were just being careless with their devices.
But the issues are there. The SFPro2 is, to put simply, the only device I've ever owned in my entire life where paint just fell down without any physical impact (aka "a fall").
As an unrelated anecdote, I'm already used to the fact that when most Apple-centric tech news sites give a product "excellent" marks in build quality, it often means it actually chips, scratches, or even deforms easily. A glaring example are the unibody MacBooks.