Over the past 3 years I have experienced approx. 15 dismounted Noritake transformers in an installed base of about 90 units (Tampa Bay Area) and around 10 broken heater/cathode wires on an installed base of 400 units. These are installed in a retail environment as customer displays (Noritake) and operator keyboard displays (Futaba). I'm not involved with the design of the equipment, rather I get to keep it running. I can only surmise that most of the failures are probably induced by mechanical shock. Also I have had instances where several new, in the box from the vendor, Noritake displays would arrive with the transformer already rolling around inside the enclosure.
I'm not saying the VFD units are a bad design, at least in my area they can't seem to stand up to too much abuse. Possibly by using through-hole mounting for the somewhat heavy transformer the failure rates would drop significantly. The transformers are about the size of 5 dimes stacked up and mounted on 10 surface mount pads.
The specific Noritake display is CU02950-0748-04C 2x20 display with each position approx. 1/2" x 1/4".