The good thing is it is fairly easy to service, as long as you have something to cut the cord to shorten it. The end caps screw in and out, and they have little hooks on the inside. Just cut off the slack loop and tie a new one (be careful to make your knot smaller than the ID of the tent pole). The longest one has a slightly different end-cap, which is plastic and pull-out, but the idea is the same. It was the hardest one for me to fix.
The nuclear option (which I would have used in the Yellowstone mosquito feeding frenzy if I had brought a knife) is to cut all the cords and assemble without them. Labeling the pole matching ends would help.