in nearly 15 years of HDMI use (including reviewing duties) i have never damaged HDMI's like trademe users.

are they particularly ham-fisted ?

the usual excuse is that they are inserting cables blind

The disconcerting part is... HDMI hop swapping can do damage, there's a very good chance that someone who does that sort of damage won't be thinking about turning things off before unplugging / plugging in.

it shouldn't do any damage as the hdmi standard allows for hot swapping.

but not all manufacturers strictly adhere to standards and there's no accounting for user/ x-factor

the biggest problem i had with hdmi hot swapping was sometimes it would screw up the hdcp handshake, meaning you had to turn everything off anyway...