Crimped Gas Line Shortcut- Anyone Seen This Before

Backstory: Our propane stove has worked for the most part, but a bit sporadically.  At first it was slow to light, and it would eventually come up to full flame.  However, on this last trip it would not work at all.  Since I had refilled the propane bottle I initially chalked it up to air in the line.  We had very sporadic internet and phone connections in Yosemite, and I couldn't for the life of me find an explanation on how to actually purge air out of a gas line.  I tried turning off the propane at the bottle, turned off all appliances (fridge, furnace, water heater, stove) and then turned it on again (by the way, all the other appliances were working without a hitch and all at the same time).  Tried lighting the stove to no avail.  Not a whisper of propane (I realize now since I've gotten home and have an internet connection that there is a way to make this work).  However, since I didn't have this information at the time, I crawled under the trailer and traced the gas lines.  I found the "T" to the fridge, and after that I found this little gem:

The hose was crimped at such an angle that the gas was most likely cut off completely to the stove.  Maybe from repetitive use of the slide?  Don't know.

There hadn't been any other hose clamps on any of the other lines.  That had me wondering why I only saw it here. And then later that night it hit me.  Someone at the factory had used it to pry open the overly tight (too short) hose to allow propane to flow. Only now it didn't work, and I've got a jimmy rigged solution that I don't deem very safe.  And neither did our dealer when I called to ask if this was a common way to fix such an issue.

So my question is, has anyone seen this done before?  Is it something that is fairly common and a newb like myself is overreacting?  My wife certainly isn't happy.  I don't have time to take it to the dealer so I may just install an elbow connector to take care of it (would it have been that hard to do at manufacture?).  But I wanted it documented before I did anything.

Any help is appreciated.  Sorry for the long post.