Hey oregonrc, I think overreacting is getting in the way of experience. Experience is supposed to be learned in the early days of flying .40 to .91 class arfs.

Lesson 1 - Seal the cockpit area from all unwanted debris. i.e. fuel, smoke oil. To do this first make sure that the firewall is sealed to absolutely not let any oil based residue come in contact with exposed wood. By doing this you gain multiple forms of performance like,
A. accidental loosening of firewall due to oil soaked wood
B. Failure of radio components due to oil or moisture entering the cockpit during engine run
C. Unneccessary pressurizing of cockpit whch causes premature failure of coating and overstresses structural components.

A few things to try in the future
A. to keep things light try using covering to seal all unneccessary holes in the fire wall. I.E. Monokote ultracote etc. It is very time consuming and requires a beginner to go through trial and error, but once you have learned the lay out of the covering on the firewall and how to keep it on in flight it is a clean look under the cowling and cleans up extremely well
B. adds weight but also strengthens the firewall, but try light ply to completely cover all holes. Paint or epooxy when done to fuel proof.
C. Baffle your cowling. By reducing the amount of stagnant air in the cowling you reduce pressure which will help your problems tremendously. The cowls on this plane are failing due to high speed flight combined with high torque props that produce vast amounts of airflowwhich translates into pressure at stagnant points. Airflow should always be more going out than coming in.
D. Go over all glue joints w/ thin ca or epoxy depending on the type of stress at the joint. Epoxy and carbon fibre tape from Dave brown make an excellent pair and bullet proofs any fiberglass part. Refer to the Great Planes Christen Eagle Manual at Great Planes website to read up on how to bulletproof wheel pants. After trying this trick you can let your imagination run wild when stress proofing with Carbon Fibre tape.

I do think that a more scale cowl with louvers would be a better choice by the manufacturer, but they will only change if it makes them money. It's up to you and your experience to make it the way you want it.

As for anyone reading this remember that these arfs are built by people who don't fly them. Only the designers fly not the factory workers. They make only enough in china to put food on the table. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I want you to keep the mindset that you are about to put $2G's worth of your money in the air and only about $5 went to the guy at the factory with a glue gun and a pile of sticks. YOU HAVE TO RESEARCH AND INSPECT EVERYTHING BEFORE FLYING!

ARF = 90% framed,painted and covered. NOT 90% READY TO FLY. YOU HAVE TO DO THE HARD PART, by holding the hand of fate all the way across the road. If you let go you will get ran over by the bus.

Everyday is a war, but Murphy was an optomist.

Finally if you have a part or kit that is not up to par, Horizon is excellent with customer service and can have a new part to you at no charge within 3 days in the lower 48. Most of the time they don't even require you to send back the slightly damaged part, that you could use as a break in part. I had a slightly nicked cowl on my extra 260 called them up they sent me a new one and I still have the old one that I can repair for sale or use in the event of a crash. I love free things.