Yes we are listening. Thank you for your business.

Regards,
Stern

You do realize your purchase is all that Stern notices? Everything else is just bla bla crap, no-one cares about threats...

If anything, it will make ghosting worse.

Too much clear is one of the main reasons for ghosting inserts.

It is possible to de-ghost a PF and make it very "ghosting secure", but that's a huge effort and will cost WAY more than $450.

Nice shiny look maybe?

It does protect the wooden PF surface very well, so the nice shiny thick clear will protect e.g. slingshot areas or your Sanctum area in TS reliably. And if the PF did not show ghosting before it will most likely not cause it. But just adding clear on a lightly sanded ghosting PF will not stop the ghosting at all, the higher surface tension may even accelerate the process.

Very hard thin clear will tear if the inserts move while the clear on the insert itself will stay intact (no ghosting). If you know original IJ PFs you will know what that looks like, Diamond Plate PFs often have that typical tiny crack all around each insert. Thicker clear will not tear, a moving insert will detach from the clear instead = ghosting.

Of course it also plays a huge role how well the plastic insert material and the clear are adjusted to each other. If the connection is weak ghosting is more likely to occur.

There is only one type of ghosting.
What you are talking about for old B/W PFs is not ghosting at all and comes from the primer they used. If anything that's a "seal of quality" as it shows the PF WAS primed at all.

Close. It's the primer that's below the silkscreened art. Tear a PF apart and you'll see...sand it down to the artwork. Sanding off the clear won't make the inserts clearer until you get beneath the art.

Or just look at EMs/SSs. Frosted, and they don't have clear on them at all.

Doesn't really matter, though - it's not a problem while ghosting may become a problem over time.

Ghosting, even being more or less expectable, is a defect. Something is coming apart.

Inserts are not frosted any more due to newer primer technology, so I do agree that it's technology that leads to this difference.

It would be interesting to know if the Stern PFs with problems are primed at all. Due to the clearness of the primer it would be very hard to tell. But that would explain a lot when it comes to lack of connection between plastic and clear.

Is the PF protector supposed to magically glue the inserts in place or change the chemical characteristics between insert and clear?

I don't get how a protector would be able to help against ghosting.

EDIT: Didn't notice Neos post, so sorry for basically repeating it...