I'm with you on the keeping good things and repairing rather than replacing, but they make it so hard nowadays. And of course, if you do replace, the new ones break so much easier because they are purposefully built to do so.
And if something breaks under warranty, you often have to fight them to honor said warranty, as I had happen to me with my blender a couple of years ago. It was a whole months-long process, and in the end I think they only honored it because I didn't give up and also sent them a photo of the many products of theirs that I own (Oster kitchen appliances/gadgets) and said that they were losing a lifelong customer - and my mom was also a lifelong customer - and I was for sure telling her and everyone that they don't honor their warranties - and they finally replaced my broken blender (the motor just died completely). They kept trying to tell me that they only do one-year warranties now, but I had bought the blender under a 10-year warranty and it died only 1 or 2 years old. I was like - okay, so your current warranties are shit, but my warranty is still the old one and you have to honor it! Arrrrgh. Anyway yeah I have a new blender now. xD