You are not alone. When I was a little girl (late 1950's) we had an iron melt. My mom had left it plugged in and it was turned off but something malfunctioned and the plate literally melted. We were fortunate it didn't catch fire and burn the house down. But for that reason I am fairly obsessive about unplugging my iron. However, there are those rare times when one is distracted and the iron is left on. So that auto-shut off has probably saved more than one house from burning to the ground.