well, from what I saw, that is not common. Most of the people complaining about gears grinding, popping out, etc were the si owners going from 2nd into 3rd. Most of which complained the most when the rpm's were anywhere near the 8k mark (or higher on the rpm range)
funny you say this, I've been in a car that wants to grind going into second (8thgen) but after I seen it I adjusted my shift into it and went it grind free at 8000.
now just today I was tuning my friends 2010 fa5 and I told him to womp on it for the datalog, he tells me nahh his second gear grinds. So I said "WTF it's still new, let me see" so he did it and I didn't hear it but he said he felt it.
So I get in the drivers seat to do the datalog pulls and I was scared to bang second because I didn't want it to grind, he told me to just do it. OK so I take off in first to 8000 and boom into second (aggressive DD shift) and nothing, it felt perfect.
So I shut VSA off and asked if I can powershift, he said sure. So I roll the clutch out, WOT at 8600 no lift shift right into second and no grind.
Did it a few times after that in 1-2-3 fashion and nothing. Pretty much I told him it's good news that it's driver mod and not mechanical mod that's ****** up here.
Also my 2010 Si have never grinded or locked out (other then it being completely my fault) of any gear, and the higher the rev the smoother it goes in (Thats what she said

)
*** Moral of the story is that Honda manuals chew through MTF so it needs replacing a little sooner then every 30k.
Also when doing a WOT pull keep your hand off the shifter until shift time, in my experience from the propulsion people tug on the shifter when in first gear and pull it out too soon while the clutch isn't depressed all the way. It's better to just push the shifter up into first while throttle then slam into second as opposed to keeping your hand ready to go into second.