Helen, the alligator hair clip keeping my hair dry would probably speak volumes.

I think the thing that manufacturers probably don't care for is those consumers who are willing to do the work to replace hard-to-find and/or expensive batteries, to locate spare parts for broken devices and "marry" them to the device needing repairing - keeping things in service long after they hope to have sold us a new one to replace the first one that doesn't work. (All of those APC computer battery backups I see at Goodwill - they could have bought new batteries for half the price of the new unit and kept the old one in service for a couple of more years.)

And a bit off on a tangent, I was listening to the news this week discuss the court cases surrounding the proprietary software that John Deere has used in all of the computerized elements of their big expensive tractors, and the "no repair" clause they put in so owners can't do work themselves or have a more reasonably priced local repair person do the work. They suggest that tractor programming is a case of national security. Meaning it has to be taken back to the vendor to have repairs or updates performed.

Think of all of the computer geeks who do their own programming and repairs here at Mudcat. While Bonzo drives me nuts with his racist rants, I am in awe of how he keeps the electronics going at his home. :) And Jon Freeman lives in a house that sounds like one huge computer science lab project.