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Like you say Speedparts are quite popular here and I think it's more a matter of them being talked about so much that highlights little things rather than them actually being unreliable. Also any ECU upgrade will highlight weak points elsewhere in the car and accelerate their demise (eg. DI cartridges, rubber hoses, dump valves, PCV check valves). How many cars with what are initially thought to be faulty ECUs, have actually got good ECUs and faulty old components? I've got the Speedparts ECU in the 9000 and so far (15k miles) haven't had any problems with it.
There are a lot of folk here with the Abbott upgrade and both BillJ and Mark E, are using Maptun software. And don't forget Hirsh.
BTW the Speedparts stage 1 & 2 ECUs are made by BSR but, IIRC, Maptun also supply Speedparts with their ECUs for the higher power upgrades.