When you pay $1200 for an AAR hood, you expect more from Stinger Fiberglass

Since you brought it up, who chose the $300 shipper?

Because if you did, that may be between you and him, but if the seller did then he needs to make you whole, and then he can take it up with the shipper
Stinger chose the shipper, I had no part in that process. The first call I made was to the shipper, then they referred me to Stinger, then Stinger back to the shipper.

1) Accept the hood as is and fix it yourself and grumble about it forever.
If I fixed it myself, I would lose the right to grumble about it and the matter would be closed.

I think AAR/Stinger expects the product to get damaged in transit. As said earlier in this thread there are companies like Glasstek who have substantially better packaging. In my opinion, a hood can be packaged well enough that even the roughest handling by a freight carrier won't damage it (given that it isn't laid flat on the bottom of a stack).
You would think they expected their product to get damaged by the way they pack them, but why??? Why would a company so blatantly neglect to pack their product with that expectation and most likely anticipating customer complaints? That's so illogical.

I get that and agree. All of my posts are based on your post #3. If I understood that post correctly, the owner flat refuses to work with you abd said fix it. I’m not saying you should be ok with that. All of my post are from the perspective of “where do we go from here”.
Yeah I misunderstood you earlier. You're absolutely right, the way people resolve problems especially in business, is very oftentimes childish and emotional.

The owner didn't actually refuse to work with me, but he did make a pretty compelling argument towards me fixing it myself. I think there's still a chance for him to make it right, I just have to see how he responds to my email, and obviously with the holiday and it being the weekend, I don't expect an answer anytime soon.