One of the fun things to do in a light aircraft is a Rate Two 360 degree turn to try and catch your wake. However, with commercial aircraft separation is very much the order of the day and certainly when I've been in a light aircraft at an airfield that uses heavies, ATC make very sure there is good separation and I'm sure the same is true for all commercial heavy operations.
Commercially, as a passenger, I've experienced wake turbulence a few times on take-off and once in the cruise. Take-off incidence was a sort of fast ripple effect whereas the cruise instance was a real bump, almost like driving over a large brick in a car.
In recent times, I don't think there has been any instances of a commercial a/c breaking up because of wake turbulence but there was the sad case of American Airlines 587 which crashed into Queens, New York after an overly aggressive control input (during wake turbulence) caused failure of the airframe.
NTSB Press Release