The only reason I ever go to an easy glide,crushed rib harvester, HPH-24, what ever brand easy to load sabot is if the standard sabots load too hard. There are some sabots that are near impossible to load with certain projectiles in some rifles. If they are not hard to load, why go to an easy glide. Granted, nothing wrong with trying them out and seeing if they help or what, but that is basically what you learned.

A good example, a Hornady SST with the sabot that comes with it, will hardly load in my Black Diamond. The Shockwave on the other hand with a thinner sabot not only load properly but are very accurate.

As for the petals breaking off.. that is not as uncommon as you might think. Many of the sabots I shoot like the blue 10mm MMP loose petals. I do not see a difference in accuracy mind you. I wonder if the sabot might not be designed to do just as you noted...