Interesting, perhaps a bad or old strut? Maybe a bad design on the brace, I don't know. I know I like the way my car handles with the SHO shop brace more. Of course I don't have 100,000 miles on my SVT either...more like 40,000 kilometers. But I drive a lot on the track!
You'd think the forces on the struts would be the same either way since you are either stiffening the struts or the strut towers.
I'd like to know what the failure rate is, I know that there's a lot of SHO shop braces out there.