I'm no expert on the mechanics of a filter.....
HOWEVER, I am mechanically inclined and have pretty good logic skills when it comes to mechanics.

Aside from being anal and not liking that when I buy something new it is broken, I don't see why this would cause ANY problem at all.

The key to the filtering is that the DE sticks to those fingers. When the DE sticks to the fingers the dirt then sticks to the DE and NOT the finger. As long as the material around the finger is not torn or have any crevices that would otherwise not be meant to be there (otherwise the DE would get through the tear and out into the pool, along with the dirt), you should be completely fine. The inside of those fingers I beleive are stainless steel springs just to give the fingers some form.

When you backwash the filter, what happens is that the DE with the dirt attached goes out the filter, and then you re-coat the fingers with new DE.

This is why it is important to NOT run your filter without DE. If you do, the dirt sticks to the fingers and it WILL NOT back wash out because the dirt gets caught in the tiny microscopic crevices where the DE is supposed to go. Hence your filter will not "filter" and is damaged.

If I'm wrong on this, someone please say so, but I'm 99% positive of this.