The first 5mm or so of a print are treated differently as to improve part adhesion. This does affect part quality and dimensional accuracy somewhat, so the raft tends to be an important way of ensuring proper adhesion and part quality. We’ve optimized the rafts that are created with the automatic support generation algorithm for adhesion and part quality so those should serve as a good reference if you’re looking to design your own.
I believe the ‘worn out’ message gets thrown after 3L, though we recommend against refilling cartridges as it can lead to the bite valve failing and encourage risky behavior like re-filling cartridges with 3rd party resins.
If possible, I’d try to get rafts working with the current updates as downgrading can remove feature improvements and cause compatibility issues. PreForm 2.12.2 introduced the Clear v4 profile.