I've only had an appliance fail once and it was an easy fix I did myself. New ones, old ones, they all just seem to work.
I rented a house a few years ago, where some previous tenant left an old chest freezer. I opened it up to see that the compressor stuff was on one side with a defrost pan above it (heat from compressor defrosts what you have in the pan above) but the actual usable space for the freezer was half the unit. I looked the Maytag serial number up and it was made in the 1940's! Plugged it in a few times when I had overflow freezer stuff to go in it, and it worked just fine. It did have a rotted seal in one area, but didn't phase it. Probably accounted for half my electric bill a couple months, but none of my meat went to waste!
Have seen lots of '80's fridges in people's garage as their beer coolers, and they always just work.
I agree, these new appliances are not made for longevity. But the way society is nowadays, the in-fad color will change five years from now, and a lot of folks will be replacing them on their own accord.
My only experience with brand new appliances was an LG high-efficiency side load washer/dryer set that I bought in 2007 (high tech stuff then) with George Bush's $600 tax refund. I paid $700 for both at a scratch and dent place. The units were brand new, but the dryer especially looked like some moron tossed it down a flight of stairs. Both worked great then and are still cleaning my 6-person households laundry to this day. The aforementioned appliance failure was the dryer-- the heating element went out about a year ago. About $75 and a couple hours later, I had what seemed like a brand new dryer again. Super simple to work on.
