Originally Posted by Mizchief

If I could rely on my LHS having the parts I need in stock when I need them, such measures would not be required, but for me that is never the case.

I do buy good equipment because most of the time it's not viable to have spare quality parts around and I don't want to DNF due to equipment failure, so I buy the good stuff to begin with. But, when you can get something that works for you at half the price, and your not racing so it doesn't matter when it dies, only that you don't want to wait 2 weeks to get something fixed, cheap backups work well.