It's pretty hit and miss. I'd attribute the problem to consumer grade/cheapest source but I've seen it happen on $10 LCD clocks and $2000 commercial radios. If it's a popular enough radio sometimes the manufacturer will do another run of displays and you can buy an improved replacement but with ham radios I wouldn't expect that. They're invariably model specific and once stock is gone they're gone, and your only source is to scavenge one from another unit. If you have the time and energy you can re-engineer the unit with a new display and hardware to operate it like this guy did for the Icom 756.
http://www.pdatechcenter.nl/ham/Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM