As far as the Robot tuners go, I know a guy who worked on the American side for the German guys who invented the thing (originally called Tronicle), and have had a chance to use the system extensively, both in prototype phases and the current generation.
I've found it to be quite durable and really an amazing product... especially for switching tunings during live shows and touch up tuning during recording.
And if it ever did go in a non-repairable way, out of warranty or what not... your not exactly left up the creek. The tuners have a manual mode and what you end up with are some slightly large, but extremely high quality lockable tuners.