Same thing happened with my stud finder. Thought it was broken until I tried it on a wall without insulation. Turns out it just hates modern construction.

Alternating weeks sounds good on paper, but it can really mess with the flow of a story. You lose that thread of what happened last time, especially if a session ends on a cliffhanger. Laura's point about burnout is real, but maybe the fix is shorter story arcs instead of a total break. My group found that planning a campaign to last only ten sessions keeps things tight and leaves room for a palate cleanser after. It feels less like a huge commitment that way.

Never had one fail on me.

Funny thing about price shock, my buddy nearly choked when he saw what a good pipe camera costs. He was used to the cheap ones that break if you look at them wrong. Then he borrowed a pro model for a weekend job, the kind that shows every crack and root hair clear as day. Suddenly his old one felt like a kid's toy. He saved up for six months, grumbling the whole time, but now he won't touch anything else. Makes you think about what you're really paying for, I guess.

Ever notice how people treat a single broken part like a total system failure? That's the "mental obsolescence" kicking in hard. My neighbor replaced his whole fridge last month because the light bulb went out. Adam186 is right, it's that cobweb theory where one small flaw makes the whole thing seem ancient. We've been trained to see a cracked phone screen and think "time for an upgrade" instead of just a new piece of glass. It's a weird mindset.