I have seen several die of just that curse - nipples pulling through the rim...but...these were all wheels that had lots and lots of hard miles on'em. I personally have never had a failure with one of these rims.
The point to observe here, I guess, is that rims are expendible, and do wear out, both from fatigue failure (like ferrule failure or rim joint failure) or from excessive braking surface wear. You have to inspect wheels carefully and regularly, because a catastrophic failure while riding is, well, catastrophic.