I suspect what happened to your Kindle is a fluke. I know a lot of people have changed batteries and this is the first problem I've heard about. I haven't had a need to change one till now. I have 4 Kindles but my Paperwhite 2 was bought refurbished and it's battery is only lasting a couple of days now, so I've been thinking of replacing it. I haven't really decided yet. I do have a Voyage and a Paperwhite 3 as well as a Paperwhite 1, so I don't really need it. I just feel guilty about leaving it abandoned.
I don't have many qualms about being able to do it successfully. I've watched a few videos showing how and it seems simple enough. Of course I realize anything can happen. The thing is I'm 77 now and I've never liked working on hardware. I was a programmer but these days I don't even have the patience to mess with software a whole lot.
It's about $45 to buy the battery from Newpower99. The Paperwhites will be $90 on Black Friday. And I don't really need it anyway. It's a tough choice.
Barry