Would those phones be recent, like since 2010? I honestly have never had the issue, but I also don't own the "smartphones" and stick with pretty basic phone tech.

That's just it. It can happen to any phone, and has happened to mine. As technology becomes more complex, stability is a lot harder to control, and problems become very difficult to track down. Particularly when the problem is inconsistent both in cause and in how many consoles are affected. The WiiU is by all means meant to be turned off with the power button. But while back in the day, pressing a power button just cut power to the system, current power buttons tell the machine to enter it's shutdown procedure. Sometimes the system is locked up and cannot enter it's shutdown procedure. Hence unplugging, which is basically like an old console switch: takes away the power.

Exactly what I'm telling people. Hardware is becoming so complex stability is never going to be 100%, it will be something constantly improved on. I suppose maybe it's harder for those to understand if they haven't developed anything for current gen systems, but the more powerful a system is the more ways it can potentially fail (hardware-wise).

At least one was post 2010, yes. My current one, as I alluded, does not have a removable battery.

Unfortunately, I have had to take the battery out of my smart phone more times than I care to remember. Just one of the reasons I'm going back to a good ol' flip phone lol (I'm sure it will still happen though... argh!) It's just the name of the technology game, man- stuff's gonna freeze, hang, and yes, even brick.

Naming freezing moments here for somethings I remember

My mom's phone: She has to take out the battery sometimes when she's playing Draw Something
My iPod Touch 4th Gen: A very slow device IMO, but usually doesn't freeze.
My Wii U: Froze ONCE while opening Little Inferno
My Wii: Randomly freezes opening things sometimes, but not very often
My 3DS: It's only ever happened once, and I forget why, it was like soon after it came out though.
My DS: It's never frozen.

Anyway, Nintendo said they were working on the issue.

My Wii U has been freeze free except for once when playing Rabbids Land. I believe that was due to the game rather than the system as the other Rabbids games froze up my Wii too.

I think it was just your system saying "Hold up. Think about what you're doing. Do you REALLY need to play this? All right then..."

I still think the wii U is pretty sturdy. My cellphone I NEVER use just cracked into pieces a while back, and my Wii U and Launch 3DS are fine.

I just experienced my first freeze on the Wii U last night. I just beat a level in Skylanders Giants, then the freeze with the horrendous horn noise came on. Just like any other freeze, required to pull the plug. Thankfully it didn't brick.

IIRC the reports of them bricking came from when they pulled the power cord while it was updating, which the system specificly tells you not to do.

Ya, you can't really avoid freezes and such 100% of the time. I haven't had any problems, except for Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed when playing with more people than myself locally online. That ones software related, and I know because it's the only game that freezes.

The reports of bricking was from pulling the cord during updating, not freezing. And even in that case, the reports were exaggerated, it was not nearly as common as people seem to think.