My experience was overall positive when I built this case. I had a similar/very different experience from beardofnails. I rearranged some of your quotes so I could easily show the similarities and differences.
I bought one and it is awful. Building inside the case is really easy and cable routing is great, but the build quality of the case is just flat out bad. My case has several loose rivets, the window is cloudy/wavy/milky/foggy/anything-but-clear....
...Both doors came with gouges in the front facing edges....
... The dust filters were torn in various places...
Yeesh. Yeah, that is bad though I'm happy to say I didn't have those issues. I did have a slight chip in the case just below where the power supply sits, which I was disappointed in but happy it wasn't elsewhere. I also did have some small tears in the front filter like you, but mine where along where the filter meets the plastic. I figured if it bothered me I could purchase some of this and fix it myself:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...rial_500mm_x_400mm_x_3mm.html?tl=g47c223s1706
*Edit* Oh I forgot to mention that while my case did not come with loose rivets the screws that hold the hinges for the side panels were a loose, which made a rattling noise whenever I opened the doors. I fixed that after tightening the screws, though.
Still, I thought myself that this was pretty bad for a $130 product.
I bent the rear of the case inward when swapping out the factory installed fan just by tightening the screws....The drive cage has to be completely removed if you want to install dual 140mm fans up front, as the screws that mount the fan bottom out on the side of the drive cage by about an inch. The drive cage itself is the same paper-thin steel as the rest of the chassis frame, and it sounds like a diesel engine when my hard drive is reading or writing from the complete lack of any vibration dampening. The top radiator/fan mounting points are also so thin that they sag from the weight of the fans, not a rad, just fans.
This is where my experience was very different. I'm not sure how there would be such a discrepancy but my case is very strong. I experienced no bending when tightening fan screws and, in regards to the top fan mounts it maintained it's shape even when I lifted the whole case up by the middle dividing bar (see this picture:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Phanteks/Enthoo_Evolv/images/casetopoff.jpg ). Without anything installed, though.
As for the hard drive noise, yes I can hear my hard drive but it sounds more like an echo than anything else. Anyway, I didn't feel like there was more or less noise from my previous case. If I remember, I'll open up the case and check it out. There are some anti-vibration grips on my hard drive cages. Hard drive noise never bothered me though, so I can't really comment on their efficacy. Overall though I find the case to be pretty good at filtering noise.
You do not need to remove the drive cage to install dual 140mm up front -- at least I didn't. My only issue with this was that they did not send me enough of the long screws to install dual 140mm fans. Perhaps this was your issue as well? At any rate, I contacted phanteks and they sent more screws for me in the mail and I received them a couple of days after contacting them.
Overall though, I'm really happy with the case.
