I appreciate your opinion,
nicotime, and humility comes highly recommended, AFAIK. Further, thank you for attending to this particular design point.
I see this same thing in my BE103 atty. At the time I reverse engineered my atty, I wondered what fibers ran under the bridge that goes over the heater coil (presumably Ni-chrome wire coil) AND that ran through the coil itself. Not having firm data, what else would it be but silica fiber, a.k.a. "fiber glass"?
It makes
sense to me: The nickel foam has a certain liquid volume adsorption capacity proportional to its porosity, and the embedded silica fibers provide a capillary action path for fluid flow from the cartridge reservoir polyester batting adsorbent wad that holds about an ml or so of liquid.
I inhale the nicotine laced flavored propylene glycol-glycerin vapor sans trace metals that races into my bloodstream to my large brain, and it sharpens my concentration powers whereby I can focus on the inner workings of the very mechanism that heightens my mind, and improves my ability to translate into English from my native Timmah! Awesome! (Well, sort of...)