Thought I'd share my latest and final experiences with you. After getting my ESL fixed, didn't take much more than couple of weeks until other panel started fading away. Once again, retailer & distributor took care of the matter, this time it took a lot longer though. As far as I know, same fixes as with the first one. All well, both speakers eventually back to operational status. But....I tried asking for possible causes for this unexpected breakage, got no actual response. I actually wasn't in direct contact with distributor. I thought if they hadn't given anything concrete to retailer I wasn't even expecting them to give me any. Although it was made very clear that there hasn't been breakages with ESL's as far as the distributor knows of. That didn't assure me in any way. Mine were broken, no matter "if there hasn't been any....." Got something out of retailer, in more of an unofficial manner. My actual point was to gain at least some information that would help me to do all I can to prevent such problem in the future. First thing that threw me off a bit was apparently distributor's worry about possible situations with "the customer and his speakers" in future. Second, and more conclusive detail was that since they didn't point out any concrete possible causes, they sort of stated that the cause most likely was cat hair. Ok, fine with me. But with this kind of product shouldn't it be known in advance if these aren't suitable with pets? Especially, shouldn't customer be made aware of such? Anyway, I did call bulls*it on that, but if "official" take on the problem is that, I really didn't want to risk experiencing fading panel-issue again. In conclusion, traded ESL's for more traditional brand of speakers, no more worries. It was fun while it lasted but left bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. And, because of the possible pet issue, can't really recommend this product to anyone with hairy pets. Or hair in general.
I really must mention though, that e-mail conversation with ML when first breakage happened was nothing but helpful, assistive and very caretaking. So, nothing but good things to say about customer care and support when it comes to global area.