Sure they can be made stronger but in stock form they are nothing to write home about. If you are going to swap another engine in you may as well look at other trannies too imho.
I am not sure where you are getting this?
please link me to instances where people have toasted a 4hp22 from adding more power to the engine because I know of people that have bigger cams and headers and rimmer super chargers and such and have not had trans failures due to the increased power.
Auto trans fail from heat...keep them cool and they dont really fail that often. The torque convertor absorbs lots of the shock loads that would otherwise break components in a auto box. The TC takes those shock loads and slips and turns them into heat. So if you are adding more power and plan plan to use the trans hard look to increase the cooling of the unit and you then improve its ability to handle the increased power you are sending through it.
This isnt a rover thing its a car thing. ZF's are some of the best auto box's there are.