I'm actually starting to wonder if cases don't cause the issue in some circumstances. I don't use a case myself (and actually a few of my e-ink devices have survived drops that put a dent in the housing
) so I can't speak from experience. But I wonder if when bending the cover around it puts strain on the device or even depending on the strength of the holding elastic etc could be subtly bending the device. It would be interesting to see what percentage of people with broken substrates are using a cover. My perception would be that it seems high, but I have no stats to support that or even what percentage of users use a case which would affect the numbers.
@Major General - no one is accusing you of abusing your device. However, most people are used to phones/tablets etc which are pretty rugged, whereas e-ink devices can be damaged by seemingly innocent usage/handling that would never affect these other types of devices. And as twowheels said, it often may just stress the screen and slight temperature variations over time can finally cause a failure (which is why it seems like it self-destructed). If you haven't done so yet check, I really recommend checking out the pics in teardown threads to see what exactly it is that is broken in your device (you'll probably be surprised). One thread here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...light=Teardown