Forgive the terse response, Dan, but the damage my regulator handle suffered was NOT from beating on the guard. Rather, it's from being deep in a knotty log, beating on the tip of the blade, and having the blade rotate and jam the guard into the log. The little bit of metal in front of the guard on the sod prevents things like this from happening, and the same treatment on the top of the blade would work just as well on the regulator.

I apologize for not making the direct cause of the damage more obvious in my test team report, but I feel the guard issue is more significant than you realize.