i think originally they said they were going to remove them but then in the patch notes they were just downgraded. i believe formerly they removed all affixes, completely bricking the item. now i believe they are just a more severe version of damaging fractures, which reduce all affixes by 1-2 tiers. i’m going to try to find those patch notes and then i’ll update this post with the link.
edit: that took less searching than i expected: Beta 0.7.10 Patch Notes