Fair enough. Although I guess I didn't see the same reviews you did. There were 68 reviews, 38 of which were 4 or 5 star. 17 were one star. Which is pretty significant. But you're saying that 34 (50%) couldn't get the device to work; which I'm not seeing. Actually I'm only seeing 2 or 3 that actually said it didn't work. The majority of the bad reviews are;

1) Heart Rate monitor not showing heart rate. This kit doesn't include the HRM, so it's moot. And likely, they aren't using gel or water anyway.
2) It doesn't work with department store bikes and certain comfort/cruiser style bikes (the speed/cadence sensor doesn't)
3) Battery life of the iPhone is poor (not this devices fault by any means; and not indicative of the device 'not working')
4) Seriously; some 1 star reviews because the apps they were using on their iPhone weren't very good.
5) It's too big to carry in your pocket (someone must've thought this was just an iPhone case?)

Honorable mention includes one guy who said it didn't fit the connector for his particular brand of earphones, and another guy said a screw came loose. So with the latter in mind; I'll throw some loc-tite on for good measure. There were a couple, granted, that had issues with ANT+ pairing.

Reading through the reviews; I'm not worried about it. But, you're right. Some people did get duds. Though almost all of the bad reviews were either operator error or just silliness (one guy complained it didn't work for his iPhone 5. You know; the clearly labeled iPhone 4/4S case.)

Actually the most common complaint was iPhone battery life.

So is it a 50-50 shot? Not really. It's more like an 8-10% chance, if the reviews are any indication (people write bad reviews more often than they take the time to write good reviews) that at some point it will break. But; even though there are a little over a dozen bad reviews and it just just shy of 4 stars overall; not a full 5 stars; the reality is most of those reviews have almost nothing to do with the actual mount/case.

BUT; it should be taken into consideration. Even $29 in money that could be spent elsewhere; especially if you were under the impression that you could go all day with something like that. Frankly; I never would've paid full price for this. I don't keep phones long enough to justify a $200 mount for one. I'd MUCH rather just pony up for the garmin. But for $29? Sure; why not. And I figured I'd pass it along in case anyone else was interested.

It actually should be here some time today (probably not before I leave though).