They really popped out? I've never seen that. I used to love the old small-pocket SGs because there was enough flex for "push on the neck" trem, and there was even pitch wobble if you spun around enough, but I never heard of one popping out. Makes me seriously reconsider my plans to build a copy of my old (long gone) SG…
Yeah, apparently, though it was considered a design flaw rather than a full on epidemic. I dont mean that you would get one out of the box and every one would do it but there were enough problems for them to initiate a redesign. I guess the thin body would have conributed to the problem, plus the double cut-away. Production methods and the like would also have made each instrument vary considerably, imagine such a small tenon with a sloppy mortice. Uuggghhh!
I would hope that any "flex" you got by pushing on a neck was the neck itself bending rather than the tenon moving or flexing. I can flex the neck on my strat and get a bit of a wobble, but the trem could be taking up the slack of the strings as well, dunno.