I use my own home-grown mods, but my wife has been using the 1000mAh eGos for almost two years now. I have similar reliability problems with them. I usually have to replace the whole set every 4 to 6 months because they just wear out so fast. It doesn't take long for them to get where they don't run very long on a charge. I've had plenty of failures with them, but nothing involving fire as of yet. I have little faith in this product, but have yet to find something my wife likes better so I just keep replacing them.
Someone mentioned how Chinese products have gone down the hill. I would say that Chinese products were never up the hill in the first place. Their products have always been of poor quality with horrible track records in safety. The Joye products are no exception in my opinion.
One thing that really bothers me about the eGos (or any mass produced Chinese e-cig) is they have no venting which is like the number one basic safety feature. The scenario that played out for Corley is the exact thing I've been concerned about since day one.
I charge my eGos on 5 slot charger in the most fire safe area of the house. I don't leave them on the charger when they are done charging. My main concern has always been with Corley's scenario exactly, taking off like a rocket from the charger in a trail of flaming battery shrapnel. That seems to be a typical failure scenario for these e-cigs. I've heard two accounts personally of the same thing happening to others, one with an eGo and another with a 510 knockoff. This makes the third one.
I hope to find something my wife likes better than the eGo and quit using them or any mass produced Chinese e-cig for that matter. They're just too hazardous in my opinion. If they had proper venting, I would not be nearly as concerned about it.
The lifespans of eGo's is probably the one main reason I skipped that step in the typical analog lookalike to mod progression. But are they sealed that well? I keep reading posts about people shorting out batteries when juice gets in the connector. Any chance that whatever void exists around the connector is, or at least would act, as a vent? I know that's not exactly the ideal place for a vent, but it's probably better than nothing.
From Corley's description of all the hissing it sounds like her battery DID vent. Whether or not it had vents was not really germane to the fact of it combusting. A vented battery won't build up gasses to the point that you end up with a fragmentation bomb, but vents don't prevent thermal runaway.
I have to disagree slightly about Chinese manufacturing. I have some experience in that realm and I have dealt with Chinese manufacturers, albeit not in the last 5 years or so. IME, the capability of the Chinese to manufacture quality stuff is better than it's ever been. I saw it improve a lot between about 1990 and 2000. That's not to say they always use that capability. But they have been quick to adopt many of the American and, especially, European manufacturing processes that were not available to them years ago. As their economy grows, they are less limited to the obsolete processes and equipment they used in the past.
What I experienced regarding poor quality was as much the fault of American corporate bean-counters as Chinese manufacturers. Production moves to China for one reason, it's cheaper. Along with cheap wages, specifications were degraded, engineering was given short shrift in favor of cost cutting. A lot of shoddy stuff coming from China was built precisely to American specifications. The Chinese manufacturers didn't quibble when an American company demanded that a formerly good product was transformed into a piece of junk when its production was moved to China. If a company provided a top-notch design specifications, they were capable of it, but it would cost more and American corporations would have none of that. In that respect, Chinese manufacturers get a bad rap. Maybe they could have avoided it if they just refused to make junk at the demand of American corps., but that's asking a lot. If you give them good specifications and a reasonable production schedule, they can do it. If you give them cheapened specs. and order them to produce a million units in a month, they'll do that too and they won't argue with you about it. But you'll get the junk you asked for.
So now, we have Chinese manufacturers mimicking a level of quality that American manufacturers taught them is acceptable for a mass market product at a WalMart price. Heck, they think, we built this junk for some American corporation and it sold. Why build it any better just because we're a Chinese company? I believe that reflects their thinking.
I experienced the same phenomenon with Russian and other former Soviet Bloc manufacturers. In fact, they're worse. The Chinese had a head start on them because of all the outsourcing from America, which paled in comparison to the level of European outsourcing to Russia, for example. But if you want to see some shoddy products, try something made in one of those countries.