Apple settled a class-action lawsuit over their power adapters, which makes it much easier to receive a free replacement these days, but they seem to refuse to fix the design of the cords.
I don't know what I find more amazing -- that Apple's power cords don't start fires and kill people on a regular basis, or that Apple isn't sufficiently worried that this will happen to hire competent engineers to design better ones. It's one of life's great mysteries. The same story appears on the front page of one news site or another at least once a year, and Apple does nothing.
