When you say you flexed them in your hands and they shattered, what exactly did you do?
I placed my hands in the position I would be on the drops and pushed my hands together. The bars flexed, then started to make that carbon creak/crack sound, then fractured along the tops pretty rapidly.
I'm not particularly strong - I didn't put them onto something / flex them over a point and put my weight through them (as you might if you were to attach them to your stem and then hit a pothole whilst riding).
