I can give you a little perspective from someone that has been in the computer industry for over 30 years...
Way back when (not at the beginning of time ;) ) Seagate seemed to be the most reliable. Sometime ago something changed and all of a sudden we had a lot more defective Seagates than WD's. We switched over to WD's and although we do get some defective drives (it will happen with any make), we still see less problems with WD than with Seagate. SanDisk is probably the most respected company for memory devices. Usually if a new device comes out, there are incompatibilities with some other makes but not with SanDisk products. They seem to follow the spec better than most others. I think if someone is going to buy SanDisk, WD is a good choice. Just an opinion.
I have a friend that bought a $100,000 BMW. It was in the dealer's garage more than his for the first few weeks. Anything can happen with any manufacturer's product... Nothing is perfect.

There are recovery programs that can find RAW files so as long as you do not write to the SD card you should be able to recover most if not all the photos but...
They are probable somewhere on your computer. As someone else mentioned you can try to do a search for the files. Or open the program you used to transfer the files and see the location it is saving them. If you have another card you can take a photo and then try to transfer it watching what the program does. Make sure you change the settings to copy files and not delete after copying or moving the files. I use Lightroom to transfer my files. I then back up all the photos to 2 external drives. Once they are all backed up, I then delete them off the card.

I have been doing this manually in PS for years. It will be nice to be able to do this in LR and have it done automatically.
Great new feature :)

To flip the photo horizontally, choose choose Photo > Flip Horizontal. This will make a mirror image of the photo.

Your link for 12,800 is incorrect, it is the 6400 again.

Here are a couple. These are reduced size and the one of him umping is a crop and reduced.

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I just purchased the Sigma C for Nikon. I was about to buy the Tamron last year, had my order in but hadn't received it late enough in the year that I cancelled it waiting till next year. I ended up with the Sigma because of the advantages it has over the Tamron. I have been told about the fact that they work closer with Canon/Nikon so there is not the same problems due to reverse engineering that Sigma has but since the Tamron came out last year for the Canon at least, there has been 2 times the lens would have had to been sent in for firmware updates (1st a focus problem and now a panning VC/OS problem). At least with the Sigma with the dock it would be a simple download and update. That one feature more than sold me of the Sigma over the Tamron. They are close enough in optics that one over the other really didn't make a difference. The other adjustments one is able to make with the dock also just adds to its value over the Tamron. I have it a week now, have only used it for shooting sports(a friends son at baseball) and has been excellent for me so far. No focus problems on my D810 (No MA needed). I'm happy. Waiting to be able to get out and shoot some different subjects like animals and an airshow hopefully mid-July.

I almost bought the Tamron last year. I had it on order or should I say back order from June till Sept at which point I cancelled the order because oit was getting out of my season to really use it. I waited until this year and now have a bigger choice. If I had the Tamron and it worked well for me I would not bother buying the Sigma. They are really too close IMO to bother. I did just purchase the Sigma C in Nikon that luckily I was one of the first in Canada as they were not supposed to ship until the 29th (did I say lucky?? ;) ). Read all the reviews and there are a few. This is an official site that keeps track of them. Also check the comments as I have found a few others eith examples.
http://sigma-rumors.com/2015/03/sigma-150-600mm-f5-6-3-dg-os-hsm-contemporary-reviews-comparisons/
There were enough differences that IMO pushed me towards the Sigma but I am sure I would have been happy with either. They are both excellent lenses. After getting and using it I am happy I did not consider the 'S' as it would just be too heavy. The 'C''s weight is manageable.

Read especially the review at lenstip and at The Digital Picture
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=15151. They give a lot of information and the last one gives an overview comparing all 3.