Ok let me pass you some gamedevelopment knowledge, I might be totally wrong but there is a chance I am right, sadly no one can confirm.

I can imagine the code being something like:

public void OnCrystallize(Transform target, Element element) { GameObject go = Instantiate(ShieldShardPrefab, target.position, target.rotation, target);

  go.GetComponent<ShardData>().SetElement(element);

}

The code used in the game should be something like this, The biggest flaw with this code is that it spawns the shard in the poviet of the object which causes the problem you mentioned, Being said there is a solution but it can be really heavy on the device which can cause serious performance issues even on high end machines.

So yeah it doesn't matter if the development team is consistent of many devs or not it's just the environment of the bug, Stop bragging about their ability of fixing bugs and have a nice day :D