By default, a mailbox will continue to fill up until process reaches its configured max heap size (which by default is unlimited, i.e. the process heap will grow until the system runs out of memory, eventually crashing the node its running on). However, you can configure this on a process-by-process basis, by specifying a max heap size and what to do when that limit is reached. This is described in the docs, but as you mentioned, it's not necessarily apparent to newcomers.
But aside from that scenario, I think a lot of the interesting failure scenarios are really sensitive to what the system is doing. For example, network partitioning can either be a non-issue, or critical, depending on how you are managing state in the system. As a result, I don't think there is too much that really digs deep into those problems because it turns out to be really hard to document that kind of knowledge in a generic fashion - or at least that's how it feels to me. Everyone I've worked with has built up a toolbox of techniques they use for the task at hand, and do their best to share them when they can. It's unfortunate there isn't really a one-stop shop of such information out there though.
I think it's probably also good advice for newcomers to remember that you don't have to use something just because its there (like mnesia) versus something you are already running or are more familiar with which solves the same problem (e.g. redis).