Why would it be a misdeal?
No, because -
^^^This.

What exactly are you citing for dealer error being the only cause of a misdeal?

If one of the first two cards dealt gets exposed because it hits a chip on the table and flips up, the dealer didn't deal incorrectly either. The chip just happened to be in the way of an otherwise perfect pitch. So by 2+2 reasoning unless we're willing to fault the dealer for that circumstance, it's not a misdeal.

If some foreign object (maybe another player's hand, not the one receiving cards at the moment; maybe the cocktail server spilling a drink; maybe a lamp crashing down on the table) flips up two cards during the pitch, or one of the first two cards, that's not the dealer's fault, so it can't be a misdeal.

I'm not getting the source of this reasoning.

Well, going by RROP:

c, g, and j sound like the only ones that could possibly occur due to someone other than the dealer; and those would all be rare cases for a player to cause them.

I didn't expect that it would be. Your story ended without the result. I was just curious what they did.

e - the correct number of cards never made it to the player. Three intermingled cards does not constitute a single card "dealt."

I would prefer that the dealer give you the next card off the deck and take one of the three mixed cards as the first burn. Like the dealer had exposed your second card.

Are these the cards he used to hit your cards?

Now you're being silly.

Cards are dealt from the deck by the dealer. The player was dealt two cards.

Two other cards were thrown towards him by another player. He wasn't paying enough attention, by his own admission, and bad things happened.

While this is true, I'm not sure it was possible to actually do anything if I was paying "enough attention". I could not have blocked the discards from getting to me without physically interfering with the dealer giving me my last card, and even if I knew what card was mine there was no way to prove it. I didn't disagree with the ruling and wasn't worked up about it at all.

Not at all. I'm arguing deal is sort of analogous to communicate. Your argument is analogous to treating an utterance as a form of communication rather than one piece thereof.

If you never got a valid hand that you could protect, you were never dealt a valid hand, no matter what the dealer pitched off the deck.

Yes.

j also applies. The player was not given a hand. Look at it this way, what if dealer deals your card into the muck. Did he deal you a hand? That is what happened to Didace. Actually, that makes the analysis simple. Where seat 6 threw his cards is the muck. Dealer dealt there. Not that dealer could do much about it, but at least that protects everyone. Not sure what the final result is misdeal, or take burn card out of those three cards and give Didace another card. Either way, Didace does not have a hand yet.

Bozo sounds like he mucks like Jason Mercier. Annoying. Obviously he doesn't care that he could potentially flash his cards or other show them altogether. What does he care he's affected the hand? He folded, doesn't affect him. Long as he looked good folding