Just looking at my bike history:
Focus Ultegra Hydraulics 16,913.4km
Issues: I broke the pistons by being a dick (not cleaning them and then trying to force the pads apart, it was at this point i discovered that the ceramic pistons on Shimano road brakes are considerably more fragile than the ones on MTB units)
Genesis 105 Hydraulics 5,239.7 km
I learnt the lesson on the Focus
GT Zaskar 4,168.8 km including the Puffer, Relentless and various other modes of abuse in the Scottish wilderness
This has had 2 sets of brakes
The first was the good old BR-M535 levers and calipers, I once managed to run out of fluid in them, not sure how but I only discovered before heading out to do the classic Mount Keen and Fungle road loop, I dumped some 3 in one into them and they worked, flushed them out and replaced ASAP after that.
Replaced them with the new blingy servo wave XT levers and calipers because I wanted to, I did manage to over presurize the system when bleeding (i.e. being a dick again) the seals don't blow so I re-read the instructions and tried again.
Rocky 4,345.1 km
This has Avid Elixer 3s on it; other than using DOT fluid which is scary stuff I've had no real problems with them.
Common problems I've had over all of them...
The ones that use a bolt for pad retention, pretty much every single one I've ended up replacing with split pins due to cack handedness on attempting to remove (either by hex head or flat head)
You can probably see that in every single issue listed the common element of failure is me.
Particularly on the MTB despite various stacks including sliding down a mountain* side tangled in the bike after toppling off a staircase, and dragging them through trees and bushes either voluntarily or accidentally, I've not yet managed to haul the pipe out of the fixing on either lever or calliper.
I've also used BB7 Road cable brakes, they're tolerable.