New Hayward EC-75 DE Filter, broken fingers? with pics

[bobjersey]

I purchased a new Hayward Perflex EC-75 filter this season. I just opened it to give it a good cleaning and I saw that a number of the fingers were very loose. Upon closer inspection it appears that they are not connected at the base, they are just held in by the mesh that goes around the fingers.

I had an old EC-65 and I do not remember the fingers ever being like this. Is it normal or will this cause a problem filtering? I am worried it will lead to DE getting back in the pool. The pool is such a swamp right now that I can't tell if it has been putting a lot of DE back in the water or not.

Thanks for any help!
-Bob