If you have allowed proper airflow and it still fried, then Lion simply revealed a hardware defect.
Okay, next time it happens -- I hope never -- I'll blame Apple for producing hardware that couldn't handle Lion. Huh?
Divvying responsiblity for a crash, from the user's POV, only makes sense in a situation where an OS made by one manufacturer (e.g., Windows) is running on a PC made by another (e.g., an Acer or a Dell or whatever). Then it's an issue which is more responsible.
Apple makes complete systems. It maintains control of, and takes responsibility for, the OS and the platform. When my Mac and many others' Macs experienced problems after installing Lion, it didn't matter to us whether it was our hardware or Lion that was most responsible. That's academic. Apple hardware and OS are a system and in this case, they go down together. You are then deprived of your computer, not just a logic board or an OS, for two weeks or more -- and if your Mac's out of warranty or you don't have AppleCare, you may pay quite a lot.
Which element, hardware or OS, is responsible only matters to potential future Lion users who might unknowingly have "weak" hardware or be asked to install an unexpectedly "overdriving" OS. They want to know the odds, which is what we're discussing here. Unfortunately, when the failure is complete and the hardware dies, the evidence usually disappears in Apple's morgue. I didn't think to ask to keep my parts, but to be honest, not much could be told from them in that state anyway.
Am I right? Are you right? Who knows? Will I put Lion on another of my machines and risk a second catastrophic failure? Not unless (a) Lion is demonstrably less risky, and (b) it offers more benefits than the trivial few so far noted, and many fewer interface flaws. But thanks for the conversation. Let's keep comparing.
