I suspect that is the case as well. We need to remember aircraft are built to fly and are not so robust to enable continuous rough handling. From experience I know that carrying an H by an extended boom places a lot of undesirable stress on a locking clip and the structure it engages. Repeatedly lifting an H using an extended boom puts the full weight of the aircraft on a single rivet and locking clip while leveraging it at the same time. The structure was designed to lift using generally equal upwards force applied to 6 booms, not one. We need to be smart enough to understand the H is designed and constructed to be portable using a folding structure, light enough that larger, heavier motors and batteries are not necessary, and strong enough to withstand flight stresses and handling by people that are conscious of the fact that everything has a limit.
What's also apparent here is the preflight process was not as comprehensive as it could have been. The rivet didn't suddenly break and fall out. A better visual inspection would have indicated the rivet had been fretting, allowing movement, and had left traces of the movement on the outside of the mount. Seeing those traces would have alerted the user of the need for repair or maintenance. If the locking clip had also failed it likely was less secure than the other boom clips, alerting the user to further inspect the clip and repair it before the next flight.
Was the aircraft abused? Probably, but that abuse likely occurred over time without the operator aware they were abusing the structure. Lack of awareness is a common problem in RC because people fail to take the time to learn enough about what they are flying, which causes them to overlook warning indicators.
