I have a TV PI that seems to so far be running just fine after about 6 months. But I also have it reboot once a day so maybe that may be some magic.

I have PiHole running myself, my original plan was to use a Pi but the last thing I wanted for that thing to die and my internet stop working. An easy enough fix, but a frustrating one.

Mine is also running on the my media server. Which... is fun. When I reboot it I have to start things VM's in a certain order or things get really unhappy.

I agree that a warning like that should be in place, I am surprised though that a new card worked for you. I have a drawer of Pi's that I never managed to salvage.