I am one that buys as frugally as I can. New mod hits, "if", I'm interested in it or its features I wait, not only for the price to come down to reasonable, but also watch all the problems that arise if any. All of my mods I have I bought 6 to 12monts after release where most the bugs have been worked out. I've got mods from very expensive at the time, example a Provari 2.5mini, to a Somovar (anyone remember this competitor to the Provari??) that are both high quality, to my more expensive Therion 166, and vt75 which I bought after waiting on seeing the bugs with the DNA166 and DNA75, my most used mods and daily bang arounds are all cheaper, VTC Mini, Kbox Mini, still have 2 SVD 1.0's that still run after 3 or 4 years. I think the biggest problem is people just don't wait and research products as they used to, this flash, bling, bang crazed consumer market, example iPhones for instance, then take into consideration end users not taking very good care of their products, and/or using the devices to their max they are designed for and burning them out due to stress/super-frequent wear and tear.
I've had DNA40s just give up the ghost on me, just as many as I've had cheaper Chinese mods give out, miss my old MVP 2.0's as example had 3 of them burn out on me due to frequent abuse. Backups and rotation are key I believe, as stated earlier I've old IPV3's and Sig 30/50/100/150 watts that are still alive and kicking, and I've seen more failures in these recent Chinese 200+ watt devices than any others in the past 18months, and if I did go for a 200+ watt device it would probably be a Yihi or Evolv board, though those Smoant Battlestars look to live up to their name in TV history. Morale of the story, research your purchases ahead of time before jumping on the wagon, this isn't about one upping your neighbor or buddy Mister Jones or a game of he who dies with the most toys wins.
