I had a similar experience with Hermes over the past 3 weeks.
I took a parcel to the parcelshop and according to the tracking , there it stayed for 18 days.I went back to the shop to see if it was actually there but was told the parcels are all collected daily. Then lo and behold it appeared at the final destination 15 days late.
I also had a similar experience with them a few months ago when returning a parcel to Amazon. It stayed in the Hermes warehouse for 4 weeks but then the tracking number was no longer recognised. a telephone call to Amazon sorted that one out.
Not so sure about the need for a high force magnetic base. Much to be said for one that is strong enough to support the gauge with the arm at full stretch but still weak enough to let you slide it around on the table with a decent push. I have one I can fine adjust by a sort of levering rolling action of both thumbs. Easy to get a decently controlled few thou shift.
Consider getting one of the inexpensive single lock arms off E-Bay and adding your own base. Unlike Journeymans experiences my £10 (ish) arm works well. The arms are shorter than the usual gauge mounting types and more in tune with the space available on our smaller machines. The one I got to carry the Bjur nozzle and vice alignment dial gauge on my Bridgeport is about 2 1/2 inches between pivots.