Well, after eight years of use, tossing a rod can't necessarily be classified as poor build/assembly quality. That's long out of any warranty save the Koreans' at this point.
At only 70K in 8 years, I wonder how well maintained it was - most cars with that low mileage are actually ill maintained, as people tend to go by miles and not time, and that's a mistake.
After that amount of use, it most certainly IS a poor quality issue. Connecting rods just don't throw randomly. 8 years is INCREDIBLY premature.
As for maintenance, I can guarantee it was impeccably maintained.