Here's a few simple facts.

1. Any electronic equipment can fail. Recievers can die, batteries can short, servos can take a vacation at the worst possible moment etc just like you could blow a tire going down the interstate or your car battery could be dead for no apparent reason.

2. "Many" of the "equipment failures" I've seen (and I've been around RC for a LONG time) have been from either improper installation, or improper operation. Whether or not people will admit to operator error or not is another matter.

3. Lnewqban as Rock said, you're partially correct and since he was asking about expo I assumed transmitter so I went with the stick pots but you're correct, the servo's have pots as well. When I started it was common to take them apart and clean the servo pots with contact cleaner when they started acting nutty

I trashed a 1500 dollar 90 size helicopter once because instead of sitting out flying it a weekend I flew it on nylon gear servos instead of waiting for the metal gear servos I ordered to come in on Monday and I stripped a servo in flight. Was it the servo's fault?

As for the BarracudaHockey, check out page 106 of the May Model Aviation