That seems to be a common thing. A lot of them don't work out of the box. I imagine the Lockhart is something that will not be made anymore as Pit Boss will come up with something (hopefully) better because of all the issues. I imagine your would've been fine if everything was connected. Can't believe they packaged it like that, but then again it came from China. Perhaps you could connect them yourself and then save the parts PB sends as backup?
Snow? I saw our weather guy yesterday talking about Denver. He said it was 96 one day and snow the next!