Also in defense of UPS, they are no worse than any other carrier, IMHO.

I used to work in a store that sold carbon ski poles. We sometimes shipped them by Canada Post - but they had about a 50% chance of making it to the destination intact. One shipment of poles to a remote community was broken so we sent another pair with double heavy cardboard support (long triangular box).. and that arrived broken. So we took two two-by-two peices of lumber and taped the whole thing together for the third try... Canda post managed to break two two-by-twos, and two carbon fibre ski poles in one try.