I can certainly vouch for the fact that server crashes and down time are rare things. I have been playing this game since May 2004 and I can certainly say the downtimes are rare in my experience. The only really major period of downtime I can recall was a planned one when they did the major 4 day update to the system.
Why does thatsoulsnatcher wrote: (stability = me sleeping so is encouraged most vigorously)
a) not surprise me,
b) make me very afraid,
c) conjure an image of technical guys running about trying to fix stuff in fear of "having to wake Soulsnatcher"?