[Shiraz (Ray)]

Maybe use a UPS when likely to be active and manual lock when not. Then, provided that all plugs and cables are high quality, the only possible failure would be if the drive circuitry went bad. But we accept the very slight risk that the electronics of our worm drive machines could malfunction and slew the mount into the limits, so failure of drive electronics is probably an acceptable risk for a direct drive as well.

However, it would be worth ASA at least addressing the issue rather than pretending they don't understand the question on their FAQ page. Otherwise they are going to get killed in the marketing wars.