I do splay really hard on the puck at times, but no more than my boar, and other synthetics though, and my 10049 Pro Boar has been used for almost 30 days straight and I really beat that one up at times. I do not use hot water, my hot tap water is actually fairly cold, I can always put my hands in it and leave them there for as long as I want.I use synthetics predominantly and while they do splay out a little bit with usage (and may even develop a bit of a "Breach", to borrow that term from Method Shaving), they don't normally develop that sort of appearance your brush has in such a short period of time. Are you using alot of pressure on your face? Really hot water (120 degrees?)?
Once you use synthetics a while you get used to their behavior. I bowl lather but sometimes I do a little bit of face lathering. I just use the tips of the fibers and use alot of painting type strokes.
I still contend this kind of look for a brush is ok as it works wonderfully well. For the price of the Omega S-Brushes I think it is worth it to really abuse the crap out of it and get it to this point just to see if it works. I think most people will find the brush quite pleasant when worked this hard and when it looks this shape. More importantly I find the splitting of the ends of the synthetic fibers to be very important just like splitting the ends of boar hairs. I just feel this brush tends to get a really bad rap for being too stiff, and scratchy. I am just arguing for a really good break in for it before deciding to ditch it.