They very point that only Fiat seem to provide a code card implies that their keys are prone to failure.
I bought the Panda because of its excellent fuel economy and low tax of £30 a year. But it seems any savings I make on running costs will be written off when I get bills to reprogram the keys or immobiliser! Firstly the cost of getting my one and only key copied at Timpsons £55 so that's the cheap road tax saving snubbed out and then more.
To be honest I've never seen such a scary complex system in any other other make of modern car and I seriously regret getting my Panda. Why does Fiat make it so complicated?
A number of points to address,
1 fiat keys are not prone to failure, they have the emergency start procedure so you can start the car in an emergency and get it to the dealer for repair, for instance if someone tried to steal the car and damaged the coils that pick up the code from the key or the keys chip becomes damaged through being run over for instance.
Your £55 spent at timpsons is not only still far cheaper than the next highest car tax band but as timpsons only clone the key you have and they don't program it into the car (the correct procedure for making a new key) its likely your timpsons copy will fail at some point when it loses sync with the car ecu, the properly programmed keys keep sync
As for scary complex systems, well it's actually very good making it incredibly hard to steel a fiat car with this system, but gives you a way to get it to repair if the worst should happen.
The other manufactures you mention have ways and means of simply ordering a new key already coded to you car that means no access to the car is needed, in addition they provide no way to get your car home in an emergency. Its also worth noting that even paying £200-300 from a fiat dealer for a key is still far cheaper than you will ever get a key from the likes of Mercedes
There is nothing scary about the system all cars these days will use something similar and costly the idea is to keep your car safe, as you pointed out the real issue is you didn't check to see how many keys there were when you bought the car.