Well, you could just get a second dipstick, cut it off at about 6" length, keep the full length one somewhere in the engine compartment and leave the partial one in the place in which it belongs.
I hardly regard this as a serious engine defect. Not one percent of the engines suffered from it, I daresay (I've never heard of it until just a couple of months ago!), and there's really little chance it will damage an engine.
