I think a lot of the problem started with the got to keep up with the Jones' and the mentality of a throw away world. If people are going to upgrade their equipment every few years then the equipment makers are going to engineer to anticipate this. If people would demand that equipment would last 15 years then they would build it. The problem though is the cost would go up a lot, and people would not be able to afford the equipment.
A do repair work for Aaron's Sales and Lease and there cash price on riders is about twice what you would pay for the same mower at Walmart, but they can't be out the full amount to purchase outright, so they have to make payments. After interest and the high priciple they pay about $2000 for a $900 riding mower.
The down side of the cheap mowers is people don't want to pay to repair them, they would rather replace the mower after 2 years than spend $100 to fix it (which is the reason for the short average lifespan, in turn leads to cheaper equipment because of replacement interval). Was informed Monday that Poulan has changed their warranty policy to units that will cost over 50% of replacement cost, I have to call dealer tech and request a replacement unit, instead of the old policy of we don't pay technicians to exchange units just fix it regardless of cost.