The standalone projectors (that you'd use with a separate screen) never had these problems; Sony still uses this light engine for those. It was just the rear-projection TVs where they were problematic. That said, I just put bulb #3 into my bought-new-in-06 55A2000 and it's still making a perfect 1080P picture.
There's a company called "Tri-State Module" that will rebuild bad Sony light engines for a $299 flat rate (they also sell individual parts and NOS replacement modules).
https://sites.google.com/site/sonylcdrptvproblems/ has more information than you'd ever care to know about this stuff.