I deleveled a crossbow from 38 to 28. At -9 going for -10, the level refine failed. It did not break. So I did another -1 roll and it de-leveled to -10.

So either the docs are messed up (and the staff are reading from those docs) or the level refine hasn't been set up to break things when they say they will break.

I won't tell them if you don't. (we all know they don't bother reading these forums )