There must be something about the neutrals though. A buddy of mine on my summer job insisted in at least 75% of the spöice failures he had seen the neutral (of a single phase system) had failed and in most cases the neutral fuses blow and not the phase ones.

Perosnally I haven't experienced that many failures, regarding the fuses I can say at home usually one or the other fuse blows, without any significance. Or they blow both at once.