Had a nice chat with the folks at LNR yesterday. The holes in question do not compromise the weather tightness of the match box. Four are a simply a consequence of the way the box is manufactured, the other four are for the screws that hold the box halves together. I put mine up in a permanent installation last weekend and found the tuning to be virtually perfect, with the exception of 15 meters and even that is in the close enough range, where a minor tweak is optional for the perfectionist. Excellent!