Here is the way i look at it.. Considering the very small number of early KJ's, mainly 02's but a few early 03' models, that have the 45RFE, and the thousands of KJ's with the 42RLE and the very small number of failures its hard to call the 42RLE a bad transmission by ANY MEANS....
And i can name other transmissions that have significant failure rates, as i am sure others on here can, from other common makes and models. Compare any of them to the KJ with the 42RLE and it looks rock solid with a fine track record.
As for the ones that have failed, well it can be attributed to many things, maintenance, useage, basically how the person treated it. My 03' was owned by a soccer mom, was never driven hard, and just made daily trips from home in the country to town for shopping and moving kids around, it's had a pretty sheltered life. It still feels and shifts like new in my opinion.
If i were to name one failure common, common as in known by transmission shops to be a failure point, its the solenoid pack. That was the only tidbit i could get out of the shops i spoke with before buying my KJ, i did a months research before buying, engine, trans, and the overall vehicle. The KJ is not the only vehicle using the 42RLE either, which speaks even more for it, consider the tens of thousands, heck 100's of thousands, of vehicles on the road using the 42RLE and i can't say its a bad unit in the least.