Ben, if you read up on the Hsu forums, they swear by the durability and longevity of their surrounds and will tell you about what was wrong with the older foam surrounds that rotted away. Reading it convinced me not to worry.

I don't think Ascend has b-stock often, but I did send a pair of CBMs to them when I did the custom veneered ones that I assume were resold as used/b-stock, but I'm not sure what they really did with them.