Used to roll my eyes at customers who came at me with YouTube tricks, figured if it worked I'd already be doing it. Then a guy had me redo a seam on some cheap berber and his way actually sat better than mine. Swallowed my pride and tried it on the next few jobs, and yeah, it made a real difference on the patterned stuff. Loop pile and patterns show every little thing, so the angle cut gives you more room to hide the line. Been at this long enough to know the day you stop learning is the day you start getting callbacks. Sometimes the guy with the phone knows something you don't, and that's worth listening to.

Crowding is real but I don't think it's the whole story here. Air fryers blast hot air from one spot on top, so if wings are touching, the ones underneath never get that dry heat and just sit in their own moisture. That's why spacing them out works, it's not about batch size so much as airflow getting to every surface. Dave was right but the fix isn't always smaller batches, sometimes it's just shaking the basket halfway and patting the wings totally dry before they go in. Wet skin is the real killer, it steams before it crisps no matter how much room they have. Try drying them on a rack in the fridge for an hour and you can fit more in without the rubbery thing happening.