Hi Rob
if you are interested in setting up your VMs for long term stable operation feel free to call me via skype next time you setup a new VM.
If you exclusively use eager zeroed thick VMs and do some extra cli commands right after creating a new VM your VMs will survive power failure and even complete VMFS-meltdowns. Drawback: it is a bit inconvenient and you cant save space through thin provisioning.

Ulli