Lets get this into perspective shall we. You simply cannot accept bugs in software as fact, and then just expect all hardware, (especially of this kind) will always be bug free, and the main reason I contacted the designer of this board in the first place when I saw others had failed. They make the boards for many distributors under different brands, and any change will eventually filter through.
We need to make sure any visitors to this site are made aware of such things and its explained plain enough for them to take corrective action in SW or HW many new comers may not understand. In my profession I see such things often, even well designed hardware can fail in production due to unexpected or unforeseen events. IMHO this will often be an issue buying Chinese copies of hardware, even Arduino compatible boards with extra features will probably get errors in the design, and a good reason to support official products. In this particular case the hardware is reasonable enough, and most hardware of this kind with those will lesser knowledge are far more likely to destroy a board or an IO pin via other methods. 