screw holes are a simple fix

This is a consumer problem, consumers are demanding film thickness way beyond what the products are designed for. Thin clears, when chipped, won't leave a deep void. Plus a thin clear is also more likely to move without cracking. all assuming the mix ratio was correct in the first place.

Games used to have just clear varnish, they lasted a few years. Then they made diamond plate, playields lasted much longer. Look at an 90s pin, preferably CV or afm, those ghosted pretty bad. Find one that the ghosted clear actually chipped. You'll see the film of clear is very thin, but it protected the games really well with standard maintenance. Those games will have 100000 plays with often almost no at loss unless there is a vuk with a strong eject, (wh2o, RS), or at the pop bumpers when the ball is driven down into the field. Those games were also never mirror finish clears. When people started doing clear on their own for restorations they started putting on super thick clear layers and polishing the snot out of them. This magnifies any imperfections. Peele started demanding these overdone clears on their Stern LEs, JJP went nuts on WOZ, etc. Think clear looks good, thick paint, which is what clear is, does not perform well. Paint manufactures actually have she's for film thickness. Just search this sure in restoration threads, you'll see people bragging they put down 10 thick we coats! This isn't how the materials were made to be applied.

See the part where I said search these forums, there's your proof. Stern literally said they were putting on extra clear on their LEs for a while. Playfield restorers have talked talked about their processes. The best ones don't do super thick layers, they know better. Companies did this because they could charge more for something that didn't cost them that much to do, and that people were clamoring for. They saw people paying 800 for apf then sending it too get 500v in clear work done. They aren't stupid, they will try to give you what you want even if it kills you.

This is from 6 months ago-12 freaking coats! But this has been discussed literally for at least 5 years probably 8.
I spray in one session, 12 coats become 1 thick coat annealed together that will generally cure and pass the fingernail test in about 2-3 days. It will completely harden within 2 weeks once the remainder of the thinners that keep the clear coat wet finally evaporate. In my experience when you block sand between coats with any clear coat if you examine it in the brightest of led lights you'll see each block sanding session's scratches in layers, so you want to keep that at a minimum because that dampers the clarity for me at least. I will do two block sanding sessions with this stuff, prep sanding and a final block sanding. If I'm spraying on a bare pf sometimes I'll shoot a diamond plate like clear coat on it first (2-3 coats) and let that sit overnight then prep sand it before I really start adding multiple coats, mainly just for the inserts to bond well to the clear. If you don't block sand between dried coats that just seems like a poor way to add multiple coats of clear just to achieve depth without giving any integrity (tooth) to make all those coats become one strong layer. Which is the point of spraying a clear coat in the first place to protect the artwork from wear and encapsulate the playfield. Everybody is working with different materials that have very different cure times and very different procedures they have perfected so there's really no comparing any of us.

Just because you can does not mean you should. Hard as a rock is worse than soft. Soft will move with the wood. Soft will show dimples but it does not crack. Hard will delaminate when the wood moves. Hard will crack when things are to tight. Hard will chop edges when balls hit them. Hard is fine on a stable substrate. Wood isn't stable.

This is directly cut from the spraymax site.
Application notes
Spray pass
1 - 2 spray passes each 30 µm

Human hair average about 50um in diameter.

Just a note, I didn't shoot 12 coats, that's cut from someone in this site that I found on a quick search

Orange peel is common that's why you block sand. Different clear formulas will have different hardnesses. You need to use a correct product, correctly. 2k can work on a playfield, badly applied 2k, or any finish, is not good. If you wanted to do it right you could have gotten a paint thickness guge and shot tests to determine what was correct. That's how pros learn.
You're field may be perfectly fine, I'm not looking at it. But I'm only going on your statement of thick coats, that's not good generally.

That's freaking ridiculous.