I read your review indeed and several of your posts here in the forum, regarding the Q8 Plus and knew that you had (almost) managed 29K lumen before it broke down. You didn’t do thicker driver wires, right?!?
I also read through @DB_Custom his thread (Sofirn Q8 Plus) and all the mods that he did, and I knew he had swapped the driver wires to 18AWG (from 20AWG I believe), but by reading it back now, I noticed that he also swapped out the original (‘cheap’) FET’s for quality ones at the same time.
With the 40T’s he used, even after all his mods, his example seems to have survived.
I assume that Sofirn stopped putting spring bypasses on them (out of the factory), because they were aware that it was pushing the Q8 Plus close(r) to its limits.
As far as I can remember, all the Astrolux EC06 came with spring bypasses (and also hit 20K+) and, I might be wrong though, but didn’t see (as) much stories of those failing. Wondering if some things/parts have changed (for different/cheaper parts) and that the Q8 Plus is a bit more ‘fragile’?
On a sidenote: I just ordered 40T’s for it (which might be the ‘new’ 40T5?!?) given that the P42A and P45B weren’t in stock and also because the P42A (initially) maybe pushes a bit too hard, let alone the P45B. With 40T’s I still get a good high drain cell, but maybe a bit less ‘extreme’ than with before mentioned Molicels. (Although the P42A has a bit more voltage sag initially, than the 40T if I remember correctly…)