Tranny Bearing Replacement?

I just had the Transmission Mainshaft Bearings (& Seals) replaced in my 1996 Honda Civic for a large sum of money. Is this a common problem with Civics?
I was told that the Bearing replacement was common in these cars, but can't find any information about it anywhere on the net or in forums.

Can anyone tell me that frequency of this problem?

Yes it's very common because it takes all the strain under hard driving conditions. It's not just Civic's, we've done many integra's at the shop and talons, eclipse basically anything that might be driven like a race car but its not. The lowest mileage I've seen it happen was 40,000 miles.

The best advice I can give is don't down shift without rev matching and don't shift fast and hard. The trans is not designed for that, think of the shift knob as an egg. Any pressure that would break the egg will harm the internals of the trans.

What type of transmission could you put in a Civic to prevent the bearing going bad?