Yeah stressing me out a little bit, as this is a one-off personal build, and being small potatoes who knows if there is an issue if I will have any real recourse. The CPU was in a static bag, and the internal box containing both was sealed with official looking tape. It looks to me simply like there was intended to be a layer of the black packing foam in-between the CPU and the cooler (there is vertical clearance in the box for it), but it was absent in my shipment.
I've sent an email to PROVANTAGE to hopefully get in front of this if the CPU got wrecked since I have no system/board to test it in until the other half of my order ships!