Most Excellent Questions.......and to expound on what e.p. said,
1. Did me not replacing the stator when the first voltage regulator went out cause it to fry the the second.
Not sure, depends on which came first.The chicken or the egg. BUT, in most cases, typically the Egg!....errrr, the Reg takes out the Stator! Not the opposite as you've posed as the typical failure mode is shorted wingings and typically that lowers the output potential. Otherwise If the Reg goes in such a way, it can take out the stator's windings by way of the Reg's input circuity shorting out(There is good news thou below for next time, see fuses)....This being
your failure mode is evidenced by the yellow wires being smoked......i.e., There was excess current( which translates to heat especially at bullet connector due to corrosion and/or inherent resistance) in the yellow wires at the input(output of stator) of the Reg's due to the Reg failing......Most likely the internal rectifiers shorted.
2. My manual only gives max amps from the stator to the battery. Is 14.4 volts to many.
Not too sure I understand the question, but 14.4 volts is a proper output for these Reg's and is a proper charging voltage for your battery, yes.
3. Is it normal for the voltage regulator to get warm/hot. And I mean hot like I can put my hand on it for ten mins and not get burned but it is getting hot.
In a nutshell, yes Grasshopper. These are "shunt" type regulator's. Typically, a high power SCR (Silicon Controller Rectifier) is being bias in its linear operational region to create a varying fake(not really fake per-se, but an "active load" to be precise) load depending on RPM's. This fake load for example shunts additional current(the mag has a limit where its saturated, say 40 amps @ 5K for example) to ground, thus due to a limited current source, it's controlling(regulating) the output voltage from being too high as RPM's increase.
You can actually help them run cooler/last longer by using more loads believe it or not.
Try this...let it get hot'ish(this can be when battery is full and the reg is very lightly loaded otherwise), then go, in turn, turn on the lights, then perhaps a pump, radio, fan etc, it'll actually cool down!
But understand there are trade off's and a balance point.......Too much pre-load heats up rectifiers(and stator windings), but cools the SCR. Too less pre-load heats up SCR, but cools the rectifiers and both of which components are in the single package of course these days, so ya'll have to find its "happy place" in and amongst a finite'ish amount of dynamics in varying real loads ya have.
But impedance matching dictates a pre-load of roughly 1/2 the stators/reg's total current capabilities when real usage approaches 0'ish would be pretty close to that balance point.......1/2 in rectifiers and 1/4 in SCR and the calculated 1/4 remainder in the pre-load. Or so my math/spice model says this is the case anyway, I could certainly have went over the edge
So if you have say a lamp you can turn on when you've run say for long enough that real is going to zero(battery re-charged fully), you'll of course know the SCR is heating up at this point, the lamp switching on will cool it, but at that balance point of not so much of a load as to cause/run the rectifiers too warm.
4. Are there any other things besides all the things I replaced that could have caused all these things to fry. The battery is one year old, not deep cycle, all cables are clean, and it gets charged every time I charge the trolling motor batteries with a Minn Kota on board charger.
See #3 and nah........They're sorta a low efficiency design(quite accurate thou, more so than series pass in fact). But, the mag field is not current controllable like our alt's, so what do ya do eh?? None the less, they have to work pretty hard and have to dissipate lots of heat(hence some other designs, but same types are even water cooled) depending on who's driving the boat(see helping them last longer above). Year after year of this just takes it's toll on the silicon dies and one day POOF, the smoke comes out.
Best thing you can do is buy the $50 dollar type off amazon(OEM and CDI's for $100/$200 and up is insane, the amazon ones work perfect!! Better....IMO. Heck, buy two spares even)) when you have replace. Keep Reg output(lose the crap bullet connectors, solder and heat shrink or inline breaker in place of) path/connections wires clean(lowest possible series resistance to loads) as you have been and run it pre-loaded when all other devices(batteries are full) are not requiring current AND fuse fuses fuses........
The lil pigs can be fused(merc was saving themselves money, not you) at the yellow wire sides to save the stator should the rectifier fry(think you know this story eh?) and fuse the output to save discharging the battery(and/or melting wires, etc) at C/0.0001 should the SCR and output "OR'ing" diode short, I use(FWIW) inline 30 amp auto reset circuit breakers on mine.
And BTW, it's perfectly fine to use deep cycle batts as well
EDIT.....Better/more accurately answered first question (among other odds and ends) I hope based on specific sequence of failures
