I do agree the cables Apple cables are flimsy and easily damaged, I am not surprised to hear that problems arise. But to their credit I've not had a lightning cable fail on me yet. That includes my development machine where, during a busy day, devices are mercilessly attached/detached dozens of times over, for loading test builds.
The only actual failures have been one old-style (pre lightning) charger cable that was in an awkward place behind the sofa and prone to 'tugging' when detaching it from the device, and a keyboard cable. The latter being mostly own fault as I'd allowed it to get trapped and squashed, the nasty surprise was that the damage was so severe and worse, the cable was hard-wired and non-replaceable.
In contrast, prior to MFI branding, the only non-Apple cable I ever purchased was effectively DoA I could use it for development and debugging but it wouldn't charge any of the devices. I also recall going through at least 3 or 4 different third party car chargers (mini/micro USB?) before finding one that would actually work as advertised for feeding a Samsung phone in the car.