Good point well made.....
The vehicle was designed for the wrong duty cycle resulting in an incorrect thermal analysis.
It’s fairly unprecedented to have such a critical component on a crewed flight vehicle, that has completely incorrect analysis, resulting in significant thermal design violations.
The temperature bounds for these seals is very known. What is unknown is how much those bounds can be violated further, if at all, on a vehicle in orbit where their current state and degradation can’t be inspected, with significant temperature violations prior in the mission, while still guaranteeing sufficient performance/reliability to carry crew.