Well, as I mentioned, I had to replace one of my Ultegra shifters .... the cable frayed enough for the end to jam itself into some breakable bit and killed itself.
But with six bikes currently with Shimano brifters, and no other failures in so many years .....
I was mostly making fun of the people complaining about how bad mech shifters were, compared to the complete black box of DI. If your DI unit breaks after five years of hard use .... how do you repair it? I fixed my Ultegra shifter---bought all new guts and swapped half the parts. But if the electronics go bad .... how many TV repairmen do you know? If ti breaks ... replace it.
But wither way everything has Some drawbacks. The people complaining (now) about how bad mech shifting used to be .... aren't even fooling themselves. it's different, it offers some benefits .... but mech shifters still shift great.
You know how it is ... there are people who claim friction shifters were the best .....