Brian,
If you remove the shield you'll be left with either 15 holes to fill (or ignore) or 15 studs.
That shield sure is a nice feature to keep bugs and stones off the front of your coach, but I agree it would be a pain to remove.
We have the 3M film on the front of our coach, and it does a good job of taking the brunt of those flying stones which would otherwise chip the paint.
I haven't thought too much about this, but would it be possible to anchor the shield only to the front of the generator slide, so it doesn't need to be removed?