ASUS Rampage IV Extreeme

With all the bells and whistles I see that come with this board I have a few questions. 

 

What is the fail rate? I have had a Rampage III Extreeme and was happy at first but i went through two of them and asus support was horrible. 

Is this a truely must have socket, is it dead? 

Coming from a z68 chipset what are anyones opinions on performance improvement over power consumption?