Your anecdote is interesting, but not relevant. The parent rightly observes that the whole point of a service like RDS is that you don't have to babysit it. If you still do then it's all of the disadvantages of your own box, plus more disadvantages.
If you cheaped out and used a single-AZ deployment, against published best practices, than it's your own damn fault.
Always plan for failure regardless of where your data is, what claims are made, or how much you're paying.