Yes, conceptually this is not anything new in security. In general, bad guys tend not to be sophisticated nor very skillful in their tradecraft. Think of mailroom security - either at your office or just at the post office - it will (or should) have a poster about indicators of potentially dangerous mail items. Here is one example http://www.sobran-inc.com/wp-content...AL-231x300.jpg. A well-educated consumer such as the denizens of this fine forum could be expected not to submit a package with excessive postage or leaking caustic chemicals but you would be surprised to find out how regularly such mail bombs are received by the postal service/fedup/dhl, etc.

In the same way, we expect that the devices bad guys making into incendiaries and bombs with "large electronics" are likely to have damage, missing parts, etc. It is easy to understand a person building a bomb will have shaking hands when using a screwdriver to open a laptop. Also, they might well not have the particular driver for the tamper-resistant screws used by the manufacturer and so they did what the Army does when the right tool doesn't work - they just used a bigger hammer.

Also, most people take good care of their (relatively) expensive sensitive electronics so seeing one with significant damage, missing parts/doors, broken casing, etc, might well indicate a person that does not care about a device (since they aren't expecting to use it again.....)