Are you sure the problem has to do with the current model S100? The infamous "E18 error" has been out there for many years (and many models) and there are few people who had a failure of their camera many years ago and got so pissed off about it they still get on boards with every new model of Canon P&S camera and stir up trouble about lens failures. One guy dropped his camera with the lens extended 4 feet to a concrete sidewalk and then wrote endless hateful diatribes on every bulletin board he could find about how it was Canon's fault the camera didn't work anymore because they were making defective cameras. This is also the second Canon camera bearing the S100 moniker with the original having been introduced in the year 2000.
The reality is that if you take good care of your camera it is very unlikely that you will ever have a problem with lens failure. Keep it away from sand and dirt and avoid knocking the lens from the side when it is extended, some things which are really nothing more than common sense. I crawl under houses doing inspections for a living, taking cameras into conditions where they should never be taken and I still got 22,500 shots out of an old S410 even though I had to knock the dirt out of the gears a number of times. (Ultimately the autofocus failed, not the lens)
Unless you wind up getting a defective camera (which is what warranties are for), the likelihood of ever having a lens failure is extremely minimal if you take proper care of the camera.
