I've had one of the 9800GTX cards go south on me, though that was due to faulty ram, and not the GPU itself. Personally, though I would have to wonder at the possibility of fatigue issues due to thermal cycling, especially considering the emphasis the current driver set makes on low noise over temperature control. Now mind you, I love my quiet computing as much as the next person, but when the GPU is cooking along at 84C at the fan's PWM is autoset to 38% and the rest of the system is starting to get cooked as well, I start to worry.
And, incidentally, as per Narg's "They care primarily about investors" comment, that's pretty much to be expected in any publicly-owned company. This is not to say that the consumer doesn't matter, but when consumer opinion starts to turn, there's usually a certain amount of time to respond. If the investors decide the company's through, they can kill it overnight. Factor in the fact that the average day-trader is more concerned about when they're going to get their next stock split or dividend than whether the company is going to be around in 12 months, and you've really got a system where the driving factor is, "keep the investor happy."