I had the same brass-marking problem in a Redding body die recently. Die was really tight and grabbed at the brass. I got a pack of felt points to put on a Dremel, coated one up with Flitz, and very little at a time polished until the marks went away. I used two sizes of the spitzer-looking points - one for the body and one for the shoulder area.
Did I change the die dimensions? Eh probably not with polish and how lightly I had to hit the die, but if it did change anything then 1) the die works significantly better now, 2) brass life hasn't seemed to suffer, and 3) gun shoots better on the resized cases than it did the first time through, so it didn't hurt anything.
If you end up messing it up, the die was trash to start with so you aren't out much. At most a replacement if Hornady throws a fit about you trying to fix their mistake.
Hornady dies are fine, I have dozens of them sitting on the shelf next to my fancy Redding and Whidden and SAC and bloogah-bloogah something-fancy dies - they're a good value at the price point, very similar to how a lot of what Lee makes is low-cost but not "cheap". This is probably a case of a worn reamer or a chip getting stuck when the die was cut, could happen in any die. You'd hope QC would catch it, but Hornady does a lot of volume and a lemon is bound to turn up somewhere occasionally. I was able to fix mine, I don't feel like Redding owed me anything since it was a simple job.
Amazon Link to Felt Points
If you want to buy a Redding, I think they make good quality dies, especially mic seating dies. But I also wouldn't give up on what you have already, if only just to try to look inside it and see if it can be made to work instead of pitching it.
