Problem Fans on Video Cards?

MobyDisk asks: "Both myself and my roommate have experienced problems with unreliable fans on video cards, leading to fried video chips. Most cards don't have full-size 12V fans, even though they put out a lot of heat. I've resorted to replacing the fans with cheap upgrades. A search for '"video card fan' on Google reveals lots examples of this problem as well as fan upgrade kits. I want to know how common this problem is. Have other readers experienced problems with video card fans? Should video card manufacturers start using better fans for reliability? Or do they just want us to upgrade next year when the fan dies?"