You've clearly been reading up on this because that is essentially the opposite of what was concluded on the thread referenced in the initial posting. The only public strip down from iFixit shows ample thermal paste being used (they think it's too much). I've been working with this for the last week and my vote goes to a driver or firmware issue.

This can happen for me when the computer is cool to the touch. I've read through that thread a lot and I really think this is a driver/firmware issue.

While mine crashes quicker under heavy load, it's not necessary.