Those bars were never crashed, or were you using them without an after-crash inspection? My Easton bars took a big hit right at the bend behind the the brake hood, in the car-bike accident I had in November of '08. I gave my bars an extreme stress test. Stood them on the floor with the normally horizontal section oriented vertically and then applied all of my weight to the other end to induce a large bending moment on the area that got hit. No problem. I've been riding them and the frame since. I still give the bars a look-over whenever I change bar tape, but that's only every 3-4,000 miles.