Blown and Leaking Motherboard Capacitors - A Serious Problem?

While it may be true that we go through a lot more motherboards at PCstats.com than an average consumer will in a lifetime, it's the boards that fail which seem to get noticed most - especially when they force a dreaded system reinstall. This particular Slot A motherboard was recently retired from active duty because the computer it was in became unstable, and too unreliable. This system had in fact been reinstalled a few times when no physical capacitor failure was visible, but this last time a quick inspection within the case had shown disastrous events underway. After ripping the computer apart to try an diagnose the strange problems which seemed to point to Windows 2000 instability issues, or possibly bad memory or hard Drive, we found half the low-ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) aluminum capacitors on the board in pretty bad shape.