Surface problems are two-fold
1. Questionable build quality. But I don't think hardware failure is as big a contributor as...
2. Unstable software.
Just speaking from personal experience, I think CR is too hasty to blame the hardware, as we've seen a lot of W10 updates that break hardware compatibility. If we're relying on user reports then I don't expect the majority of them could distinguish between a hardware failure versus a faulty driver, at the end of the day all they see is a non-working fondleslab.
That's probably where CR comes up with the insane 25% failure rate. Magical blue smoke events are rare, but that won't save you from device-bricking software updates.