They used to be. I think the K&N now have a different country of origin than the hiflo and that's when the failures started happening.
A lot of the failures are related to the nut on the end of the filter of the k&n, the hiflo I have has no nut on the end. They do however make a race filter that has one on it.
Not sure if this is allowed, but here is a video of a failed filter from Daytona. Was uploaded to FB.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10214228137849197&id=1587520788