I am an 808 user like you. I make mods and battery meters and I have to remove the connector from cartos to make my mods. I have cut into a lot of 808 and 510 cartos to do this.
When I take cartos apart, most of them look like this:
The coil runs vertically (up and down) and is tightly wrapped with a material (top right picture) that is then wrapped with a wicking fiber (bottom picture above)
If you let your carto go dry, all the heat from the coil is transferred to the wrapped material and it will burn
(see picture on the top right). The wrapped material then heats the filler material. As you can, see the wrapped material burns more than the filler material.
I have a HENDU and my wife was lucky to get one of the PIT BULLS to try.
I noticed that the SS cartos had a better draw and throat hit, and did not seem to have that burnt taste when the juice was low like my 808s did.
I read in this thread that the SS carto had a horizontal coil (unlike all the cartos I have seen except the new E2 ones), and I just had to cut into one to see if this was true. I did a dry burn to the SS carto before I cut into it.
As you can see, the SS cartos are very different from most other cartos. First of all, the coil is not wrapped tightly with material like the 808s are, and second the coil IS horizontal (sideways). The little white tubes (I removed them from below and above the coil so you could see the coil better) direct the air flow around the coil.
The coil is wrapped around a burn resistant material (coil fiber). I tested this with a lighter and the coil fiber under the coil did not burn. The coil fiber then extends out to touch the wicking material that holds the juice. I tested the little white tubes that direct the air flow and found them also fire resistant.
If you test the material wrapped around the 808, not only will it burn, it will light on fire and keep burning until all you have left is a pile of ash.
Unlike the 808 that has to be in contact with the wrapped material to keep it wet, the SS coil is fed from the coil fiber that is touching the wicking material. If it runs dry it will heat the coil fiber, which does not burn like the 808 wrapped material. This is probably why the SS cartos are less likely to get that burnt taste.
Now I know why the SS cartos work like they do. My next mod might just have to have a SS battery connector on it.