Regarding Update 25: This guy, who claims he's an electronics engineer, basically says the opposite. That the mild over-stress of the 480 is no issue and that the huge spikes that some cards like the 750Ti, 950 and 960 Strix showed are the real problems.
I think some people might experience issue with this card and the Nvidia cards. People who hold on to their old HW until it crumbles and try to run new mid-high end cards in old crummy mother boards and with old, worn and low spec PSU's.
Heck, I have had issues with my 560Ti cards I had a few years back. Turned out my PSU was broken. I have also had PCIe ports that have stopped working without being stressed in any way.
So I think that unless its an epidemic, any person here and there that experiences issues with this card today, could very likley had experienced issues anyways. Legit sources able to reproduce the issue an frying motherboards in a recurring fashion, then there is proof of a real issue. I have not seen a single credible source even frying their first mobo, let alone replicate it.