bperrybap:
But regardless of whether you are able to convince one vendor to correct his broken design,
it doesn't fully resolve the problem going forward, because there are several vendors
out there making similar LCD keypad shields and many of them appear to have copied
the same broken backlight circuit design so the problem will continue to live on.
And of course the problem is of LCD shields that are already made, and may be sitting on some distributor's shelf waiting to be bought.