Considering that this is almost certainly related to your own personal behavior and/or environment, it isn't surprising that you find it reproducible, albeit a bit odd.
It only charging one way indicates corrosion, probably on the cable itself, but possibly on the female port on the device itself. Burn marks probably means there's a grounding issue somewhere. Neither of them have much anything to do with lightning connectors, unless you suppose that the pins being outward facing rather than inward has something to do with the corrosion.