Accord EX 3.0L V6

• Automatic transmission
• 80,000 miles

3 year old Honda accord, high mileage (80k), but mostly highway miles. Never had a major problem with the thing, although the brake rotors tend to wear prematurely, on the 3rd set up front already! Over the weekend, power steering fluid started to leak. We'd been topping it off Sunday into Monday, waiting to get it to the shop when the car started smoking after one particular start. Immediately shut the car down and had AAA tow to Honda. Apparently they need to replace the steering rack! $1200! I asked what could have caused this on a 3 year old vehicle, and a Honda to boot, and receive an answer that goes something like: "We have no idea..." The ironic part of this whole thing is that I was planning to trade the vehicle in, and my wife talked me out of it! Regardless, I'm wondering what might cause the rack to start leaking like that? Bad design, lousy build quality or environmental / driving habit issues? We live in upstate NY, so plenty of salt and snow in the winter. Car has never been in any kind of accident, except for a curb scrape at parking speeds, nothing that would affect the steering. My 1998 accord went 150k miles before we traded it in last year, and the only major problem it ever had was the alternator blew at 130k, and that only cost about $300 to replace. So naturally, we didn't buy the extended warranty with this car. Will definitely do that for all future Honda purchases. I'm wondering if maybe Honda reliability is going down hill?