That "bone dry and cracked" line got me... I used to think it was just marketing too until I saw the same thing on my old laptop.

Yeah, that DEF heater circuit is a known weak spot on those. I've already replaced three this year on trucks with around 60k miles. The connector pins seem to get brittle and the whole harness needs a close look, not just the heater itself. What's the actual code number you're seeing most often?

You said it feels like a "glitch in the matrix," but is it really that deep? Stuff like this happens all the time with digital files. Maybe you mislabeled a couple by accident, or the preview window in your software is showing them out of order. I've had photos do that where the date tag gets weird. It's probably just a simple mix-up, not your work changing on its own.