When I worked at a game store, we had a permanent display of Blokus (original), and I would find myself going to the display at least five times a day to change it where people "fixed" it.

This happened at the store I worked in, too. Another common reaction was for people to say "Look, Tetris!" before they started to arrange the pieces.
I eventually put a sign on the display that said "I may LOOK like Tetris, but I'm totally different." I also tried a sign that said "You may think you know what you're doing, but you're playing me wrong. Ask a staff member about Blokus!"
Neither of these signs had any effect what so ever.

A colleague of mine at the store had an argument with a customer over the fact that the customer thought Monopoly is the best game ever and ALL games that aren't monopoly are pointless.

Just goes to show that store had some of the dumbest customers EVER.

The game store at one of the malls here has classic blokus set up on display with a LARGE cardboard sheet explaining the rules,but its the same stroy as the rest of you.

Game store owner/employee misconception: Not everyone is a game geek, nor do they spend inordinate amounts of time on BGG researching new games -- deal with it! Just because you leave the rules/instruction manual out, or put a big poster by the display, doesn't mean that your potential customers are going to read it. Most people will default to something they're familiar with -- and if the game looks like Tetris or an abstract puzzle of some sort, then that's the most likely assumption for them to make. Being a gamer-geek does not necessarily have to equate to being a gamer snob.

I always found that funny about our demo. If you set it up to look like a game in progress everyone fiddles with it. If you put all the colors neatly together then no one touches it.

Surely the hexagonal shape points to Chinese Checkers as well.

anything is better then actually playing this game, IMO

Same at my store.

Too true. Chinese checkers and droughts are far better games than Abalone.

"droughts"? hmmm... perhaps you ought to get the more advanced "Dust Bowl Bound" for some REALLY & truly "fun farming times!"

Turning the pieces over so that they all match sounds like typical Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder behavior. Those of us with OCD have a nearly unconscious compulsion to make things look the same. Do the same customers arrange the pieces so that they're symmetrical?

They're confusing the game with Jenga?

Of course it's not a defect: it's a feature, removing some material to save manufacturing costs. I'm sure all the pieces have them, right?

I would probably do this, on the assumption that the pits encoded hidden information somehow.