beowulf, sorry about your experience. I have a PSA middy and it eats everything, even when alternating brass and steel (in the interest of disclosure, my PSA is a .223 wylde chamber).
I have seen rifles from Colt to DPMS suffer from issues with steel cased ammo, but it definitely sucks when it's your rifle.
I bought a PSA upper based on INGO recommendations. I wouldn't do that again. An AR that won't handle steel cased ammo is no good to me and the PSA upper started suffering from cases stuck in the chamber after less than 200 rounds. I would scrub the chamber and it would for another hundred or so and then get stuck. Meanwhile, I've had 500 to 1000 rounds through my Century Arms Galil and my FN FS2000 with no where near the number of problems. So, I'm guessing the "mil-spec 5.56" chamber was a bit tighter than it was supposed to be. Or mil-spec 5.56 for the US military is a lot different than other militaries (Israel and Belgium respectively... plus my HK93 work great with steel cased ammo as well, before I sold it to buy an MP5 clone).
I sold the AR (making it clear it doesn't like steel and taking a bit of a loss on it in doing so) and bought myself a Rock River Operator, which I've had much better luck with (though I have only about 300 rounds through it so far).
I know shooting steel isn't a big deal to a lot of shooters, but it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine that most reviews or discussions about a rifle don't include how a rifle operates with steel cased ammo. Steel cased ammo could be had for $100/1000 less than the cheapest brass pre-crisis (and hopefully we'll see a return to those prices in the next year), so it makes a huge difference if you shoot a lot. Hornady, a major American manufacturer, has been making steel cased ammo for the last couple of years, so I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a lot more steel cased ammo, not less.
Back before I started reloading and could only afford steel, I probably ran 500-1000 brass through my 5.56 PSA middy AR without cleaning and without any issues to speak of.