All good points, but it appears that some of the rumors are not just rumors. Here is a very recent erratta sheet issued by Microchip on these particular series of chips and the problems that have been due to as manufactured mistakes, and not due to inappropriate usage http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/e...Doc/80224b.pdf

I am assuming that the problems as listed in this publication have been corrected in the new silcon coming off the production lines. So hopefully nothing new has crept in after the changes. Of course depending upon how the chips have been utilized in a particular project, these problems may have never been an issue.

Apparently the topic of this particular post "Auto Baud Rate Detection" was one of the areas where the chip's EUSARTS have had reliability problems.