I definitely think you could be on the right lines with the spring being an issue. I still can’t understand why it was at that end - twisting action and springs is never going to end well.
There’s a reason every battery holder I’ve ever seen has them at the other end - that boing as you drop the batteries in is something I remember well from being a kid.
I’m not happy to see anything fail, but I do feel that the failure points of this design were, or at least should have been, pretty obvious from the beginning. So I’m pretty suprised it had to go this far, hence my disappointment in the whole thing.