Bulletbutt,
Exactly right on both counts. Freezer burn is indeed caused by meat contacting air. We do the same thing with our meat: bone it out so it can be wrapped smoothly and tightly.
Frost-free freezers will make freezer-burn even worse. This is part of the reason why the freezer compartment in most modern refrigerators is a bad place to store frozen meat. Not only are they commonly frost-free, but they're not nearly as cold as real freezer. Plus the air falls out of them when they're opened.
All of our big freezers are NOT frost-free.
One story we tel occasionally is how we once found a package of cow elk steak that somehow had hidden itself in our freezer for NINE years. (How it did that is something of a mystery.) It had a couple touches of freezer burn, maybe a cubic inch all together at the corners, but just cut those off and cooked it. It was fine....
