Great description, TT! If I may add the connectors can take out the stator coil due to excessive heat from nowhere to shunt it if there is too much corrosion, the amperage is created by stator and rotor, and then resistance in the spade connectors overheats and burns out the stator, and possibly the field coil too. My 1982 XZ550 Vision, and my 1981 XV920RH both had the same stator, and connectors, and they both were prone to frying the stator if the connectors weren't serviced and cleaned, and dielectric grease added. (can't fry the rotor on them, as it is a magnet) 
Charlie
I guess I have to at least partially disagree. I understand how PM alternators function. I am not familiar with the implementations to which you refer.
While there is no doubt corroded connectors are not a good thing and should be avoided. Their added resistance reduces current flow capability. You need both current and voltage to generate heat in a given resistance. More corrosion yields more resistance and voltage drop in that connection. Current flow with voltage differential creates heat at the connector.
If the connectors are heating, it is only conducted heat that can effect the stator windings, so they would have to be very short leads to get that heat into the stator windings. I don't think those yellow wires are short enough on the SOHC4 to conduct enough heat to do that, as that heat would dissipate/radiate before reaching the windings proper.
This SOHC4 stator /field design is self limiting. It relies on flux crossings to develop a voltage in the stator windings, agitating the electrons. If you try and draw the electrons out faster than they can build, the voltage diminishes, decreasing the power out and any heat that would go with that power. You can actually short these yellow wires out directly. The electrons then vacate the windings so fast, that the voltage can't develop high enough to create significant power. P=IE. Can't get power/heat without both I and E.
For the SOHC4 stator, physical damage can hurt it. Electrically, a shorted rectifier could bring battery power into the stator windings and cause damage from overheat. Same issue as connecting a battery backwards, as this would essentially make the rectifier look like a short. Then it becomes a race between the battery to alternator wiring, and the alternator windings themselves to see which will become the weakest link and part/break the current path. Apart from the 650, the rest of the SOHC4 examples do not have fuses between the battery and charging system.
The stator is where the power is made/ amplified. The rotor or field is driven only by the black wire/ battery voltage level. The rotor steals power from the black wire to self excite. Only when the rotor is making a magnetic field and the rotor is spinning can power be developed in the stator. But, it can never develop more wattage or heat than it's design limits.
The 650 is the only SOHC4 with a spinning field coil. The rest use a stationary field coil and a spinning magnetized metal core to vary the flux crossings.
The field coils are electrically driven by the regulator. Heat there is a result of regulator aggressiveness, and the resistance of the field windings. A spinning field rotor has the added issue of centrifugal force and crankshaft vibration trying to dislodge the winding's wire insulation.
The observation that connector corrosion somehow leads to stator failure in PM alternators, likely has more to do with its regulation technique, which is different that what the SOHC4 uses, as well as physical arrangements.
I've never verified an actual stator "burn out" on the SOHC4, without physical abuse also being present. However, it is man's creation. So, it has to have a failure rate of some sort. But, I think that it would be pretty close to a lump of metal.
...if any of that helps...
Cheers,
