That falls under "chosen them poorly," if that defect is characteristic as opposed to one-off (which applies to ANYTHING). I've linked an article before from the 1950s which demonstrates this- I'm too lazy at the moment to find the link again, but it was entitled something like "Sad Tale of a Half Watt Resistor." I stick to name-brand components bought from reputable suppliers (e.g., Mouser, Digikey) and have not experienced any problems.
Last time I checked Mepco-Electra was a reputable brand (at the time a subsidiary of Philips) and the resistors came in a lot of 100 pieces from Newark, Gerber or similar. No reason to expect an issue, but an issue there was - these were standard 1% 100ppm RN60 metal films, just fine for the chosen application, and in fact replacement with a competing brand (Dale) of the same exact specification solved the problem so I have to strongly disagree with your assessment that I choose them poorly. (How was I supposed to know in advance that this batch of resistors would be defective? 😛)
Here is the link SY referenced above: http://www.tubecad.com/2007/12/23/The Sad Tale of a Half-Watt Resistor.pdf
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