I love UL...they have treated me well and their products perform better than anything else I purchased elsewhere.there are a couple reasons why sources will require you to sign
if its international then its too expensive to return to sender
and if the package is expensive they will want to make sure you sign for it
you say trust is in limited supply these days, well i can tell you that when it comes to a source and their customers nothing is more important. and what happens 1% of the time is that trust is broken when a customer claims they never got a package when they did, so if its a very expensive package like this sounds like it was you can't fault the source for wanting to make sure it gets delivered properly to you and not your neighbor
this sounds like something umbrella is doing in certian situations, maybe due to holidays too because of sheer volume of shipments
the important thing umbrella does is provide real products for a fair price and make sure the pack gets to you safely. so you can't fault them on that
Changes like a signature on PED orders (for research or not) make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.