Tire failures have influenced the outcome of several races recently. I'm not sure what the problem is but races should be won by the fastest car/driver and not by the luck of the tire draw. With that many caution flags, a 400/500 mile race comes down to a five mile sprint after the majority of contending drivers have been eliminated from competition.
Remember that no one liked the flip side of the coin either. When one team had an ideal setup on hard tires, they took a huge lead for the entire race and it was boring. Indestructable tires = boring racing too dependant on engineering and not enough on drivers skill.
Now they have a softer tire that forces teams to manage their available grip. That encourages smarter racing and showcases drivers talent, not car set-ups. Too many teams are putting excessive downforce and using ultra aggressive suspension set-ups that abuse the tires down to nothing in short order.
Collective temptation to use setups that maximize grip and handling is not the fault of the tire engineers. With soft tires you only get so much grip so it's on the crew chief to put in place a thought out set-up and it's on the driver to either care for his tires to extend their grip, or choose to use it up in carefully chosen battles for position.
The teams asked Goodyear for softer tires and they got 'em. Stoopid is as stoopid does!
That's what I thought, though I still may be crazy :-).
I specifically remember at the beginning of the season when NASCAR was on FOX and 'DW' would ask rhetorically - "what's more important in this race, gas or tires".