How to unbrick the system?
When something goes horribly wrong and you can not boot the system, this is the way to proceed. You need some Linux machine where you can insert SD card failed. With this procedure, you will reinstall the u-boot, kernel, and hardware settings. In most cases, this is enough to unbrick the board. You should check the file system before mounting:
I do not understand

Actually the way I have fixed it is stick the card in a Linux machine...run gparted, select the partition, select scan/fix...let it finish, eject it...and every time it comes back up cleanly.

 

Or run fsck

# fsck -y /dev/sda1

(or partition on the SD card)

https://www.maketecheasier.com/check-repair-filesystem-fsck-linux/

 

If it continues...it might be time to make a .img on the Linux machine...then get a better card...I too kept kerfuffling over armbian issues like this..with power failures and whatnot. turns out when I bought a decent A1 card (much faster than a class 10) the problems have gone away for the most part.

perhaps bootup in a new sdcard with a fresh new armbian image？perhaps the board isn't bricked after all?