Consumers are interesting creatures. I'd like to say that I haven't been sucked in by the allure of low-spoke count wheels but I can't. I've got three sets: Campy Eurus G3's and Mavic Cosmics that I purchased dirt-cheap a few years back and a set of Campy Zonda's that came on a second hand Calfee. These are fitted to my personal road bikes which are neither stressed by my body weight nor do they see all that much use given that at best I only ride about 2,000 miles a year on solo bikes (the tandems get the most use) and those miles are split up across four different bikes. Debbie's solo bike, on the other hand, gets about 3,000 miles of use each year is running on conventional 32h Campy Chorus hubs & Mavic CXP33 rims. The road tandems both use 36h conventional wheelsets and the only time I'd be interested in low-spoke count wheelsets is when I could buy a set for less than it would cost me to build up a set of conventional tandem wheels... which would be about 1/3 of what they're asking.

Anyway, back to the warranty coverage, that's all you can hope for and much of what you pay for when buying high-end, lightweight components. The manufacturers and retailers are all well aware of the higher than average failure rates and the pricing reflects it.

Bottom Line: If you find yourself thinking about wheel reliability when you're riding, chances are your wheels really aren't all that reliable. The only time I think about my wheels is immediately after hitting something really nasty... and that only happens about once a year.