I removed them all on a mod upgrade - tried my usual prying (Iv'e done dozens of glued MCPCB's this way) Well, put a flat edge tool into my hand on a slip - lots of red stuff... Ouch. After that, tried a plain old screw driver and light hammer and that did the trick! No damage to the pill top also, because if you position the screw driver just above the pill surface, all the force of the blows is to the star edge, so knocks them loose.
Upgraded to 6 XM-L2's with the IOS/KD 7X LED beast driver, and got 6,700 measured lumens. It wouldn't support 7 XM-L2's, so dropped the center one and worked out great - nothing noticeable in the beam pattern.
Mod thread here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/23851