exposed fibers is 100% sus, that should not happen. That dent you see in the bb is a normal relic from their EPS molding process though, my winspace bottom bracket had a big chip in that bb area and they sent me several photos saying "it's part of the molding process" that show exactly you pictured. The issue for me was what my BB did not look like their photos.

I attached the image they sent of their normal BB and my chipped BB. You can see in mine, the chipped area goes all the way down to the drilled hole in the bottom of the bb. Their normal, smaller dent is further back in there and looks a lot more like your frame. Your headtube definitely looks bad, but the bb is okay.

I had a miserable time dealing with their customer support, I hope your experience is better than mine.

I've really grown to love my ICAN/Triaero Flyee in the last couple months and that's an Orca "inspired" frameset, if that option interests you. The frame easily fits 35c tires and I love the ICAN FL38max wheels I got for it too (sadly they've raised the price of those wheels by $90 since I bought mine). I checked their truing, dishing and circularity when I received them and everything was within .5mm. I was sick for the whole second half of 2024 so I was not able to actually start riding the Flyee until this year and it's honestly been wonderful. I love the geometry, it's snappy but still has high stack so you don't need a tower of headset spacers under the stem.

For the record though, they did totally strip the thru axle threads on the fork but it was easily fixed with an M12x1.5 tap and ICAN told me they would send a replacement fork if needed. I was the one who chose to tap it rather than get a replacement. I shared more pros and cons in the thread I linked below.

https://icancycling.com/products/flyee-road-bike-frame
https://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,5127.0.html

How did you pay them? if it was through VISA or Paypal you can ask for a charge back (paypal calls them disputes). I had to open one with ICAN when they sent me a frame with a messed up headtube. Money was sent back to me within the week

I paid with a credit card, I am waiting to receive the replacement before taking any action though.

After 3 weeks, the frame made it back to Winspace, they still claim it is within their standards, which tells me their standards are crap and people shouldn't give them their money. They confirmed they received the frame and told me I could proceed with the exchange, or if I wanted a refund, they would give me a refund but only for the 1380 USD I initially paid, not the additional 200 USD I paid for "shipping" the returned frame. To me, this seemed ridiculous. It says right in the the memo line for the additional payment that it was for the exchange service, not "shipping." Seems like the very definition of a bait and switch. Pretty darn scammy, holy cow. The only reason I am accepting a new/exchanged frame is because it's the frame my friend wanted. If it was for me, I would have just sent it back, done a chargeback and been done with Winspace forever.

Have you bought direct-to-consumer frames before? I think it's important to go into it very ready for the fact that direct-to-consumer frames (from anywhere, not just Asia) can come with all kinds of issues and you have to know what to watch out for. I wanted to add this because when you say "beginner" I am not sure if you mean beginner to riding bikes, building them, or both. Maybe you have already done this but, if you don't have experience with carbon frames, I would recommend binging youtube videos from channels like Peak Torque, Hambini Engineering, and Trace Velo to get an idea of what to look out for, good and bad.

I've build several frames in the last 3 years or so and they have almost all had some sort of issue:
Onirii ONE: pretty good, just needed to file out some holes a tiny bit.
Ribble Endurance AL: Paint splattered in the bb threads and headset bearing cups, rear thru axle could not go in because the paint was too thick (LBS fixed it up for me)
ICAN Flyee: Front thru axle was cross threaded and the threads were damaged (tapping the threads solved it)
Salsa Journeyer: decent, but all the mounting points for bags and bottles had paint in them and needed to be tapped.
Winspace C5: big chip in the carbon in the bottom bracket, sent back to winspace to be exchanged (exchange process is still ongoing and is being handled wildly incompetently, its been a nightmare.)
Enve Melee: immaculate, which it darn better be for the price they charge for those.

All of these issues are solvable and I think it worth it to have a custom built bike at a more affordable price but it's easy for things to not go as planned!

I'm not on Instagram or Facebook :/ if they don't agree to send a replacement asap I'll try to find some way to spam them though. At the very least, I can write a 1 star review...

the longer this drags out, the more annoyed I get. The returned frame has been sitting in a warehouse in Shenzhen for 11 days because they messed up the commercial invoice. They classified it as a "sample" rather than a "return," which is a thing they do to avoid import duties. They also declared the value as 150 USD, which is another standard way to avoid import duties. I'm not sure which part (or maybe it was both) the customs clearance people didn't like. I tried to send an updated invoice a few days ago but it's still sitting there so I'm not sure they were happy enough with my update. I also asked Winspace to deal with it earlier last week, because it was their mess up to begin with. So far they have done nothing.

Winspace won't send a replacement until they receive the original frame back... and it's starting to feel like they're actively trying to not get the returned frame 

I covered some of this in a different post but I wanted to start a new one that was more of a topic about customer support expectations.

Do you have different expectations for customer support when dealing with the slightly higher end brands like Winspace/Tavelo etc compared to brands selling sub $500 frames?

I'm having a miserable experience with Winspace customer support rn and I feel like they're being willfully unhelpful. Since they are a brand with UCI certified frames and sponsoring continental teams I was hoping for better support. At the same time, maybe my expectations are too high?

My C5 arrived with a big chip in the carbon inside the BB area and when I asked them about it they completely refused to acknowledge that there was a large chip. I got really annoyed with them, but it was mostly because they wouldn't even acknowledge the issue in the photos I sent them, not because of the chip itself. They sent me multiple pictures of other bike's bottom brackets saying "see this is normal," but none of their photos showed the chip mine had. They agreed to exchange the frame for an additional $200 but still never acknowledged the chip despite me directly asking, "do you see this, yes or no?" The fact that they were clearly avoiding the issue made me more concerned than the issue itself and I agreed to pay the $200 but felt like their tactic was to deny any problem to avoid having to replace it under their warranty. The current status is that the returned frame has been sitting in a warehouse in Shenzhen for the last week with a note in the return tracking saying they need addition info from Winspace (who created the shipping label) to clear the frame through customs. I asked Winspace to do something about this, they have not responded but I only sent the message yesterday and it does sometimes take them two days to respond. The fact that they offered to do the exchange at all might imply they know something is wrong because there is no information on their website about exchanging or returning items.

Has anyone else had an experience like this with one of these "higher end" east asian brands? I had really hoped they would be less wiggly and difficult. If this was a $500 frame I would be more understanding but its a 1380 USD, EPS molded frame with a UCI certification. I had a vaguely similar experience dealing with Ribble's customer support a couple years ago so it seems like it's not just asia. Ribble had said I should return my frame and they would sent me a return shipping label. After weeks of bugging them, they just never sent anything and I had to get my credit card to refund me because the frame was not buildable.

Where does the extra money paid for higher end frames go? In a way, its nice that they are replacing the frame, rather than just ghosting me... but the fact that I paid the Winspace premium only to have to pay them even more money later on feels unfair.

that gravel frame does look interesting, just as a regular gravel frame. IMO that 50c tire clearance would be a bit overkill for the terrain you are describing. Could be good if you want to get into more gravel though.

I'm not as familiar with all the frames out there as a lot of other people on this forum but I would be surprised if there is not a good middle-ground option that can fit 38-42c in the same price range.

Road bikes are usually designed to have you positioned a little more forward and get your weight further over the front wheel (helps with stability/prevents speed wobbles, especially if you have deep rims). Gravel bikes are often designed to have your weight further back to keep traction over the rear wheel so it does not slip on loose terrain. They're usually longer with the intention that you will run a shorter stem (this can feel "nice and responsive" to some and "annoyingly twitchy" to others). To me, the concern about riding road on a gravel bike, would be more about handling than speed. It might handle a bit weird and throw off your sense of balance. 

From the geometry, I can get a vague idea of how the new VB gravel bike would handle on road.  It has a similar seattube angle to most road bikes and a zero setback seatpost so it does not actually position you further back like many gravel bikes do. It does have a kinda long top tube so you might need to size down and use more spacers under the stem or use a shorter stem and have that twitchier steering. It also has a slack headtube angle which will position the front wheel further out from under your weight, probably making it feel a little less stable in front. If you're planning on bombing technical descents it might not be the best, but for casual riding its probably fine. In reality, many of these technicalities are small enough that most people would not notice them.