As an irrelevant aside, there would have been copious metal "in the oil" in these cases - I have had this confirmed by two reputable U.S. engine shops. Small particles appear in oil analysis (which almost nobody does, but everyone should) but the kind of camshaft trashing referred to would produce bigger lumps which end up in the oil filter.
Anyway, I suppose what this means is that when flying in IMC, one needs to be monitoring the systems properly. With an autopilot, this is really easy to do because there isn't much else to do. The whole route will have been preloaded into the GPS, for example, before departure. Some IFR pilots don't do this, preferring to load just the first couple of waypoints and then play it by ear. This is a recipe for getting caught out, in the early stage of a flight.