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dennis, braid does not directly cause rod failure, anglers and manufacturers cause the failures we hear/read about. so many failures are blamed on the rod or braid or whatever, but it's almost always a case of high-sticking, overpowering the rod's ratings, fishing drags way too tight, or carelessness, which few own up to. yes, there are manufacturers that have had issues w/ a certain series or model due to pushed development or poorly designed guide trains. yes, occasionally a blem does come thru, but it's rare. however, braid has changed the rod blank industry in how they design blanks from lessons learned early on, such as ron arra series. also, guide selection has changed so that wind knots are lessened. i can fish weeks w/o a wind knot personally, but i build my own rods too. looking at a rod from the 80s, to a rod in the late 90s, to a rod today, it's amazing the changes, and most of that is what you can see. anglers that have fished mono didn't loosen their drag when they switched to braid; most increased drag pressure since they slipped easier when fighting fish. where does that pressure now go? ferrules, blanks, and reels. newer blanks have a lot of technology to now compensate for "braids" or mainly the new pressures put on them due to strain originally absorbed by mono. one advantage not talked about here yet is that braid essentially pushed blank design and rod design to make rods lighter and more enjoyable to fish!
i have found little advantage to fishing mono over braid. not needing gloves or a casting finger to cast would be one and possible easier to untangle if fishing around other anglers fishing braid, which is huge on a dark night, when the bite is on, and guys are trying to untangle instead of just cutting. basically, speed of untangling. i also noticed my knots were failing less on braid than when compared to mono.
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