i think when it comes down to it, its all about luck lol. ive had 5 xenon and zephyr consoles total, and all run fine. the xdk i bought a few months ago has never had rod and i used it alot. only reason id ever get a new console is because the others would get banned hahah
That amount of heat is normal with these mobos, you could buy small heatsinks for the ram on ebay which would help. Your color problem is caused by either the hana or the gpu, mainly the gpu from my experience.