I don't know about the reliability, cost or guarantees of other card manufacturers but since the time I started using SD cards the only ones that have failed, for no obvious reason at least, have been Sandisk cards. They were the original SD cards though and not SDHC so you can see how long ago it was. The only other card that has failed was a no-name card that the lock button broke and made its way into the card interior.
I guess there's some bad ones that come through from every manufacturer, at least with the Duracell cards you get a 10 year guarantee, I don't know about any of the other makes as I haven't used any in nearly 3 years. I only used no-name ebay cards before I got a DSLR and TBH I didn't have any failures with them either, but I got the Duracell cards as the files were much bigger in MB's from DSLR's as opposed to compacts and bridge cameras I used before.