"Getting back on track, is it me or have RR had a few of these in recent weeks? Any commonalities wit the 747 incident? Didn't the 787 RR engine test have problems too? Common components/maintenance/manufacturing...?"
Yes Indeed, the 747 UCF was probably a RR as well as was the UCF of a 787 engine on a test bed recently.
Lets not foget though it's not just RR having these problems all manufactures suffer these problems, they are all pushing the bounds of technology to try and improve SFC and reliability. A GE UFC recently caused a write off of an AA 767. AF has had a number of issues with their GE powered 777s resulting in IFS and diversions.
Lets just wait and see what the cause of this was before writing off RR engines or indeed the A380!