Hi Semlin,
Your breakage experience is intriguing. Something isn't computing though.
At 122k miles, (right before the mis-hap), you said the knuckles looked fine (stage 1 or maybe 2 in my parlance). Up to that point had they had regular maintenance (wheel bearing repack, knuckle grease insertion/inspection)? Did the damage happen while off-roading, or in regular road driving?
Depending on your answers to those questions, it might be that someone who DOES regular hub and knuckle maintenance (but not birf repack) and DOESN'T off-road, or only mild, incidental off-roading (as Pitbull has stated), has little to learn from your experience, and I would in that case hesitate to call him nuts.
The lessons I learn from your experience are (assuming your answer to regular hub maintenance is 'no' or unknown, and that you weren't driving down the street when it happened) is:
a) full-time 4WD, off-road operation, and anything less than lavish (=expensive money and/or time) maintenance is a bad recipe for birfields.
b) since I don't like spending gobs of money and/or time on what is supposed to be a very stout, reliable piece of hardware, maybe I should go part-time (not economically possible on 97), not wheel it

, or replace with Dana 60 or 70?
c) when facing unknown or poor past maintenance, don't trust anyone else but myself to gauge the health of a vehicle I take off-road.
Regards,
Kenton