I have always wondered what kinds of instruments were so fragile, people would take steps like this to make sure they didn't "hurt" them.
The only cases were I have read that an instrument was actually damaged, was some kind of synthetic material guitar, or bass. I forgot the name, but there was one company that made guitars out of a kind of plastic for the body, and someone had said that it "warped" from being in a car on a very hot day. Another one was when Washburn tried to use carbon fiber as a fretboard and it would become unglued, I think Parker had the same issue.
One does not simply glue carbon fiber onto wood and not expect it to detach over time. Regular carbon fiber shrinks, and in industrial uses this is well known. There is such a thing as a thermal proof high temperature carbon fiber, but it's very expensive and used for things like air plane construction where lives depend on the stability of a synthetic material.
For instruments, wood is actually pretty neat. It may not survive 400 degree temperatures, or the crushing pressures of the Mariana Trench, it may go out of tune, or pop a fret in the direct sunlight, or dark shadows of the moon surface, but overall it's pretty stable.
Some finishes will peel, but again, it's likely a synthetic mixture that wasn't correctly designed. Oil and wax may not protect your bass from a ding, or a bump, but they won't just fall off in chips in 30 years like on the Fender Lead series, where the finish really did flake off.
Waiting around on your porch for people to check for broken packages isnt their department, you refuse the package or you don't refuse the package. If you open it and it's shipping damaged that's some other folks job to deal with.
