I just do not want to send that one back as well if this is considered Normal for pedal that cost me nearly twice the price of a max just down to this finish!

That doesn’t sound normal. I know that they rejected some of the H9s that were gold plating due to imperfections. It sounds like that one was just overlooked during the QA process. I have a gold H9 sitting here on my desk. I’ve had it for a couple of months so it’s not fresh out of the box. When I look closely at it, it has some hair line scratches in a few small spots, but no spots with missing plating or pitting. With regards to scratches, gold is a soft metal and I suppose that’s going to happen eventually. It drives my wife crazy how scratched her wedding ring has gotten, but it doesn’t really bother me.