I just got my 205, so far so good. If it locks up though I'll be one piszed puppy as well! I'm like you Cali- the miles are my motivator. And yeah, I'm a slave to my gadget. Whatever, it's me...
Now as far as the calories go. I have never had much faith in gadgets telling me how many calories I've burned. Because you can say that running for 10 minutes burns 100 calories, and that may be true for some people, but it really depends on the persons size, metabolic rate, terrain, etc. IMO unless you are in a lab hooked up to a machine measuring it, I don't think there is any super reliable way to tell. I think you just need to do a rough average. But like I said, thats just MY opinion...
I just plug my training data into fit day to get a rough average on how much I've burned. And believe me, I'm like you! 1200 cals a day is my set point- as sucky as THAT is! So it does matter to me how much I'm burning. I guess I just like to err on the side of caution, so I don't tend to trust gadgets.

As far as the reliability.... I had heard that people were having problems w/ the unit after about 6-7 hours, so long distance stuff. It sounds like you are running into that problem, no?? I think they said that the unit was not made for rides over a certain time (I think 6-7 hours) and then it would lock up. Something about only being able to store so much data or something?? That is a big time flaw that they need to address!!