Vancouver has also moved to a smartcard system (Compass Card). Sounds like it has similar issues to Myki and Connect Card. The main argument against it is that people have to pay twice if they buy a paper fare on the bus and transfer to SkyTrain. I believe this is also the case with Sound Transit's Link light rail.
My Compass Card is still in pristine condition, so it sounds like they're manufactured differently than Myki. Chips and dents shouldn't matter as long as the antenna and RFID chip isn't damaged. A crack, of course, could break the antenna (which goes around the edge of the card). I wonder why Myki doesn't have a way to register the cards though? Here lost/damaged cards can be replaced (for a fee) if they were registered.
Also with the advent of the Compass Card came the abolishing of the zone system for bus travel only. This was because the card readers on buses were taking upwards of 4 seconds to process each card when tapping out. SkyTrain isn't affected by this, so zones still exist there and on SeaBus.
Overall I'm neutral about Compass. I don't like the fare gates because it takes time to tap in and out. With the paper monthly pass (seen in my signature), which was discontinued in Dec 2015, you didn't even have to take it out when boarding SkyTrain, which was much more convenient.
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The light rail in my city was for the longest of times (and still is) primitive.
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Haha, I actually like Edmonton light rail because they have the button in the cars to open the doors (which makes sense because it's hella cold there). They tried that for a couple of years in Vancouver (when SkyTrain was first built), but it turned out no one could figure out how to open the doors, so they removed it. However, the button is still pressable on the outside of the Mark I cars.
Vancouver's suburbs are also built with the car in mind, at least where I live. Walking home from my bus stop is a little scary due to the lack of sidewalks and visibility.
This thread has gotten great replies. It's tempting to compare Vancouver to somewhere like New York or Tokyo and think it's shit, but it could be much worse. I feel so lucky that I can go from my house to anywhere in Vancouver on my own whenever I want. When I first started taking the bus, I was amazed by that. I had always relied on cars until then, so it was like discovering a whole new world, something that had always been there but I'd never noticed.