Originally Posted by puma1552

It's not really exposed like an external cam; while it's not entirely enclosed either, the guts are pretty much within the body and I cannot see a washer the lever cradles into like you can with a typical external cam.

I figure this is either a pretty well protected external cam, or an internal cam that's a bit less protected than a typical one. I really don't know.

As for my quick release, I decided to go upstairs and open and close it 15-20 times, and it's nice and smooth now - I guess it just needed to be worked in a bit, so no issues there. Maybe it had been sitting around a while at the factory or something, but it's good now.

EDIT: @cobba thanks for posting that link, looks like it is indeed some weird hybrid skewer.