Food for thought, and consider crappy castings. In a performance gasser with cast pistons if you end up detonating, thata split your slugs bigger than Dallas! And a diesel is essentially a "detonation factory" right? Throw some more timing (load and heat) at it and it is all that much worse! IMO, theres lots of varibles to consider on the sum of piston falures, prolly some of everything. In all actuallity, cast pistons are very resiliant and will take a hell ova beating but the foundation, the cast quality, has to be spot on. IMO, piston quality is the main contributor to the failures. Can explain the randomness of problems too, most are good enough to survive but theres "bad eggs" mixed in with them during manufacturing, no two are cast "Exactly" the same. If QC is bad, well theres an open door for trouble, have 7 good slugs in your motor and 1 sucks an fails? Seems locical to me