BananaBaiter

Do you guys think it's a bit off that a Blue Yeti support agent is asking me to rip out the USB port on a microphone that I'm sending back for a warranty appeal? I feel a bit like a child who's being tricked by a twitch chat to toast my harddrives and microwave my mouse.?

Depends if you know how to solder.... for me I would be lost in a sea of melted metals and terrible mistakes. 

Be sure to ask them to re-iterate what they said and save that email for sure.
But it's not uncommon for companies to ask people to break their components when sending it back.
 
Just imagine, if I were working at a post office (and in this alternate reality I am also a not so nice person) and I saw a shipment for Blue (or to make it more interesting; Apple!), I could think "oh darn, expensive stuff!" and open it up. That way stuff gets 'lost in shipping'.
But if I knew it would be broken, it wouldn't be worth the effort. (Although they do ship you something working back...)
 
It might also be for Blue support themselves; so they know what to fix. Or for yourself, so you can see they didn't send the same unit back..

It's pretty normal for the industry. Some major keyboard manufacturers require you to cut the cable off if you're RMAing so they can avoid paying the shipping costs. I know for a fact that SteelSeries requires you to break off the left and right mouse buttons if you need a replacement.

You have the proof that he asked you to destroy it anyway so it will fire back on him.

send picture of random destroyed usb port...profit? JK you shold ask them it seems funny to ask someone to destroy the product.