Thanks for the interesting stories. I guess it's yet another situation in life where we think everything is great until some issue comes up, and then we get to find out how good/bad the company is when it comes to service and support.
Unfortunately for streaming devices it seems most aren't great. My journey has involved issues of some type from Cambridge, Matrix, Innuos, Bluesound, and Aurender (although the latter was quite a while ago). Finally satisfied with Eversolo in my headphone system and Auralic in the big rig. I've seen lots of people have trouble with Auralic streaming gear, even if I have not (yet). I guess the same goes for Eversolo now as well.