When I ordered new vr's last week, Andie explained that they don't use rivets to bond the pad material to the backing plate. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Carbotech does use rivets. Anyway, if they aren't rivets, then what are the circles in the backing plates? Here's a pic of an old spec vr pad next to a new one.

 

The rivets would be a lot smaller and you'd see the head of them on the pad side, not the backing plate side.

Not sure what that fill material is in those circles, seems like a lot of pads have that. Probably adhesive.

No rivets:


Here's my Carbotech's that had rivets on the face (see the holes in the pad material?)