I've had one cartridge failure and I have a local friend that's has had one -- caused by a violent drop onto a record in my case, and a fuzzy sweater sleeve snag in my friend's case. In both cases the stylus popped clean off the boron cantilever, which remained intact. The glue bond to boron seems to be one of the weak points of the cartridge assembly -- the other weak point is cheap thin-walled aluminum pipe cantilever, which you often see bent or crumpled.
But that definitely SHOULDN'T have happened to you in the absence of shock or trauma! That sounds like a bad glue job.
But that definitely SHOULDN'T have happened to you in the absence of shock or trauma! That sounds like a bad glue job.