It would seem to me (exception to Nambo - Trev ) that water pump maintenance would be important on a bike with a few years riding on it. My mercury out boards were the same , new pump every couple of seasons on it. With that said , i know i'll be doing mine with a full tear down of the pump and replacement of the bearing (like a 10$ part) and shaft if any sign of wear , at least once a year , besides it gives me a good feeling to KNOW that every thing will hold up to what i want out of it. I usually do a annual maintenance of many bigger things anyways , like swingarm and linkage tear down and clean and regrease and replace any worn items , suspension tear down and servicing , and also clutch tear down and check the plates. Steering head tear down and regrease , New wheel bearings once a year or more if i get lazy with my maintenance after a lot of water crossings with not pulling the axles and drying everything out afterwords , but that is my own fault. I do many other things on a more regular basis , But i invested huge coin into this bike and i will get rid of it after 2 years max and get another one , and i get a very good trade in price when i do each time because it is almost over maintained , im just anal that way , but if you ever get one of my bikes from Dave Fair , it will have been ridden hard but it wont look like it and everything should be tight still on it. But i will add the water pump to my list just to be safe and it isnt a big deal unless it does fail
sorry to hear about another one , but it could be like KTM 300 Piston and they have a habit of breaking the crown i have heard , hence the NEW BETTER PISTON for 2011 and a slew of other problems KTM's have
Once again sorry to hear about the failure , but i wouldn't hesitate to buy another gasser for a second about this , as it seems from what im hearing to be a rather rare problem and mostly with bikes a few years old , as it did happen to my 06 shortly after selling it , but it was just a bearing replacement as it never did any case damage and we were lucky. But the bike had 3 years of riding every weekend on it at the time so , back to what im going to do once a year