EasyPass has been flawless IMO. You can use any active gate. It does take about 15-20 seconds for it to read the passport (and somethings you have to make sure it is centered on the reader) and open for you to enter and begin the photo matching processing before taking another 15-20 seconds for additional processing and the final gate opening up.
Agent might be making things up as an excuse as passport information page and RFID chip have to comply with international (ICAO) standards. If the machine readable zone on the information page is not damaged, then maybe the RFID chip is.