Although all tracking systems report my XL's are still in China, the mailman kindly brought them to my door today. Checked a few from different packs and no apparent dented threads so far. Pop off the all the caps, note the notches on the filler cap, wick is pure white, a little moisture on the bottom of the carto but probably leftover from the steaming process. Dry burn, little sizzle but none of the yucky primer smell. Rinsed it out to be safe, couple more dry burns and added 1.8 ml of a 20 percent VG mix and let it sit for 5 minutes, try it and it's just about as dry as R1 was. Let it sit a little longer but not really helping too much. Chastise myself for buying XL's instead of the non-xl's which worked great for me on the last revision.
Tried 2 more leaving the filler cap in one of them and leave them sit for probably an hour. Tried them on LS at lowest setting and there is noticeable improvement with plumes of vapor and no dryness but the flavor isn't really there like it is on the non-xl version. First one still isn't wicking correctly hours later. So thanks for the recent link, off to watch Bad's PTB video.....