I don't think you can criticise the chip's reliability if you go shorting pins!

That's like saying Ford cars are bad because you drove one into a wall and all the lights broke!

You need to design you circuit to protect the micro against fault conditions - like short circuits.
Look at the "Absolute Maximum" ratings in the datasheet - these are the ratings above which damage may occur, so these are the ones you need to consider for fault protection.

Or, maybe you just need to be more careful?
Design your system with easily-accesible test-points that you can probe without risk of shorting?