Cable Box Reboot - Need to be educated, help please

[Roy Starrin]

Called up the necessary gear to watch "24" in HD on my new 40"LCD
Monday night, and got a nice cream and green screen saying - WVBT
(Local V.B.channel) is temporarily unavailable. Check Back in a Few
Minutes - or some such. Immediately ran to next larger no-STB analog
TV and their it was in living color, Jack chasing the bad guys.
Immediately called COX . I tried valiantly to talk to a human, but
kept getting diverted to their interactive problem solver, which
suddenly had me tearing my install apart to get to the STB power cord
and unplug it. Was led through the reboot, which returned the signal.
Since this whole HD world is only 10 days old to me, I have some
questions.
1. In a generic sense, what can cause this kind of glitch.
2. Is is unique to COX, the Motorola 6416, STBs in general, or what.
(My ultimate plan is to shift to FIOS, when and if VZ every gets its
channel set up unscrewed, and that includes adding local CH 13. I went
with COX HD initially because I had Cox, so that I could iron out bugs
that might exist. To me, this is a bug - but it could follow me to VZ)
3. Do such glitches happen regularly? The wife, who watched all this,
is upset, because I bought into something in which she would lack the
knowledge to rectify problems, even with COX help.(BTW - Read
elsewhere that simply pushing and holding the POWER button on the STB
would accomplish the reboot. Can anyone verify?)
4. Is there a way to see what the STB is doing, thinking, what
softwear update it has? If the "how to" is common knowledge, referral
to a site would help. No need to retype the obvious.
5. Should I simply unplug the STB periodically when I go to bed, and
let it reboot in the morning when I get up? Will I gain anything?
TIA
Roy