I just received my XL1S and I'm a little paranoid about doing things correctly first - I opened the cassette compartment by hitting eject, but then when I close it (WITHOUT INSERTING A DV TAPE IN IT) I closed the outter cover first - which I read later to be a no-no....could I have damaged it?? I didn't have a tape in it when I did this....I was just testing out operations.

Sleep well. You didn't break it. Just don't make a habit of it, ESPECIALLY with a tape in it.

a restful sleep it will be - I was reading in "The Skinny on the XL1" that it was kind of a design flaw because it's hard to see the "push this" in first on the inner metal sleeve..and other people are doing it - which means, other people like myself, are not reading the manual before they start dinking around with their new toys.

I have not heard of an XL1s being damaged by closing only the outer cassette door.
Closing only the outer door - with no cassette in the chamber - should also prevent wear on the heads if you are just testing camera settings.

Probably not a design flaw. It is likely a design compromise to save money, reduce complexity, and improve reliability. The current method means they do not need to add another sensor and a more complicated mechanism to retract the tape carrier if they have the operator push it in by hand.

FWIW, when the XL1 came out it was a common new operator error to NOT push in the tape carrier, and this resulted in the tape not loading until it was ejected and then the carrier pushed in per instructions. No harm no foul.