Salute!
Yeah, syseng, the lithium types are presently being used in military systems. Only problems I have been told about were from folks in the "sand box", and temps there were getting really high, and many units went back to Ni-cads for ground-based systems. I share your opinion that we had a "bad batch", as the failures happened in short order and not spread out over months or years.
As I mentioned on another thread, our original Viper electrical systems were primitive by today's standards. So it turned out that our "last ditch" emergency power system was the most simple - PMG's and some coils, driven by engine bleed air or the hydrazine generator like the ones you see on the space shuttle ( that pffft, pffft, sound you hear after roll out). So uncommanded activation of the bleed air doofer cranked out too many volts because the basic system had not switched over to safe voltage output.
"normally", heh heh, when the system went to back-up it provided AC/DC and hydraulic power. So we had a basic design fault and corrected it after several losses and one fatality.
Secondly, those lithium batteries need high-tech monitoring for the charging system. And if all they are used for is back-up power, then there's no need to charge them all the way to max capacity constantly. Even the Prius does not charge its NiMH batteries to 100%, and they leave about 20% for regenerative charging when braking.
Finally, despite claims about no pure lithium in the batteries, physical and chemical actions could result in catastrophic thermal runaway. So I plan to take my old cell phone ( kids bought me an iPhone for Christmas) and break the sucker with a hammer and throw it in a pail of water. As with other metals of the same class, they react violently with water. Will report back.