Not sure how common this problem is on stock, non-tuned cars. I've heard of a couple, but also stories of cars covering 300k miles with only scheduled maintenance.
All engines eventually fail in some way.
I've read some stuff about the L15 motors in the Accord and Civic, and it seems to be a big issue. Don't have any experience with it myself and haven't had anything like that on my K and B series motors. Guess we'll have to see how this all plays out.