Flaking of etched glass

When I was doing a slow shallow etch of the waxwing bird on a cylindrical glass, I was having lots of flaking. I asked Boss Laser Tech Support what to do to improve the process and they recommended the following. 

"We have seen a lot of people have success by placing masking tape over the glass on the area that they are wanting to engrave over. This typically helps them a lot with the flaking on the glass. Also the air flow seems to be too high for that material it would probably be better to be around 20PSI.

Lastly, some lasers have a hard time firing at 14% power or below, I definitely recommend trying to up the power to at least 15 each and every job so we can ensure the laser is consistently firing for you."

I'm not sure I agree that this will help:

1. The masking tape will be hit many times in a small area and may cause lots of debris issues near the laser head.
2.We prefer pressures more like 60  psi for a reason, again, to get the debris out of there.
3. We have good experience with dependable firing at as low as 10%.

 I will consult with Seth to see if any of the suggestions from Boss Laser make sense.