Why would your Psychotty ever be sealed?, even by accident. Seems like a strange reason to buy a different airfilter. And if you sealed the Psychotty on one end, the PSYCHOTTY should collapse, not the filter since the filter itself is INSIDE the psychotty. Not to mention, the rear of the Psychotty is designed to allow air to enter should the windshield cowling be blocked by snow.
Something else must have happened to your filter. A 14-71 High-Helix blower (which puts out over 60psi of boost) and pulls ALOT more suction then the Cummins ever will uses a K&N in the fuel injection hood and it uses throttle butterflies BEFORE the K&N. So if what you say about the filter collapsing when you blocked the Psychotty inlet, then technically every time you let off the throttle of this blower equipped engine, the K&N would collapse, and it does'nt. So your K&N must have gotten damaged some other way. I know just getting my K&N into the Psychotty housing dented it and distorted part of the screen, maybe that is what you saw. Either way, it in no way affects filtration. As mentioned, the screen only serves to hold the gauze, it does NOTHING to filter the air.