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I can't imagine going through the trouble of swapping out an amp's innards to circumvent a problem with warranty support. It's not as if two wrongs can make a right. That said, some people will do anything when they're driven to desperation.
I agree with Chuck on the problem of planned obsolescence, consumerism, and disposable widgets. It's a pet peeve of mine. I heard a commercial on TV that said that 50% of all manufactured goods produced in history were produced in the last 10 years. Think about it. That trend can't continue or we'll be living on piles of garbage.
I hate disposable merchandise. I don't want to buy a new widget every year or to and contribute to the problem of dead widgets in a landfill. I want to pay top dollar to buy a quality widget that will last my lifetime. We all know that old Fender amps fall into this category. And even though Mesa amps get maligned a lot around here, I think that my Mesa Mk IV falls into the high quality / long life category. It's built with very high quality, it's very well supported, and it was built in America. There's a lot to like about the amp. It'll probably last my lifetime.
I'm going to disagree with Chuck on the Chinese contract manufacturers building to the quality standards that are demanded of them. We all remember that things started off with everything being made in China being a PoS with shoddy workmanship and substandard parts. That problem is still prevalent today. Many a contract manufacturer over there will build to the lowest possible quality using the lowest quality parts they can get away with, in spite of what their customer requested of them.
I'm sure that you guys have all experienced failures of a consumer electronics device that was related to the manufacturer's decision to use a low quality cap. I've had it happen more times than I can remember. I once had to replace a dead PSU cap on a DVD player that was one week out of warranty. What ticked me off about that was that I had a $20 DVD player die a week out of warranty because they decided to use a 2-cent no-name Chinese cap in the PSU instead of a 5-cent quality name brand cap. So I had to buy a 25-cent cap at retail and spend an hour fixing the unit to keep it out of a landfill and to avoid rewarding them by buying another one. This process has repeated itself with different consumer electronics items more times than I can remember. As a result, I try to avoid buying new consumer electronics. I feel like I'm being exploited whenever I have to give in.
I have a family member whose job is quality control for a major US corporation. They order lots of contracted goods from Chinese manufacturers, and they've been burned several times by contract manufacturers skimping on parts when they don't think they'll get caught. To assure compliance and constant quality, my brother has to travel back and forth to provide on-site supervision of the contract manufacturers, otherwise his company can't get the quality that they need. The result is that he alternates spending 2 weeks abroad and 2 weeks at home, and half of his life is being spent in a foreign country, away from his family, supervising manufacturers who would skimp on production if he weren't standing over them with a club. That's what it takes to get consistent quality out of China. They don't have the American manufacturing ethic of building the best quality product. Their manufacturing ethic is focused on building the cheapest cost product that will pass a performance standard, and often those standards are set pretty low, in spite of what the contracting company requested.
I agree with Chuck on the problem of planned obsolescence, consumerism, and disposable widgets. It's a pet peeve of mine. I heard a commercial on TV that said that 50% of all manufactured goods produced in history were produced in the last 10 years. Think about it. That trend can't continue or we'll be living on piles of garbage.
I hate disposable merchandise. I don't want to buy a new widget every year or to and contribute to the problem of dead widgets in a landfill. I want to pay top dollar to buy a quality widget that will last my lifetime. We all know that old Fender amps fall into this category. And even though Mesa amps get maligned a lot around here, I think that my Mesa Mk IV falls into the high quality / long life category. It's built with very high quality, it's very well supported, and it was built in America. There's a lot to like about the amp. It'll probably last my lifetime.
I'm going to disagree with Chuck on the Chinese contract manufacturers building to the quality standards that are demanded of them. We all remember that things started off with everything being made in China being a PoS with shoddy workmanship and substandard parts. That problem is still prevalent today. Many a contract manufacturer over there will build to the lowest possible quality using the lowest quality parts they can get away with, in spite of what their customer requested of them.
I'm sure that you guys have all experienced failures of a consumer electronics device that was related to the manufacturer's decision to use a low quality cap. I've had it happen more times than I can remember. I once had to replace a dead PSU cap on a DVD player that was one week out of warranty. What ticked me off about that was that I had a $20 DVD player die a week out of warranty because they decided to use a 2-cent no-name Chinese cap in the PSU instead of a 5-cent quality name brand cap. So I had to buy a 25-cent cap at retail and spend an hour fixing the unit to keep it out of a landfill and to avoid rewarding them by buying another one. This process has repeated itself with different consumer electronics items more times than I can remember. As a result, I try to avoid buying new consumer electronics. I feel like I'm being exploited whenever I have to give in.
I have a family member whose job is quality control for a major US corporation. They order lots of contracted goods from Chinese manufacturers, and they've been burned several times by contract manufacturers skimping on parts when they don't think they'll get caught. To assure compliance and constant quality, my brother has to travel back and forth to provide on-site supervision of the contract manufacturers, otherwise his company can't get the quality that they need. The result is that he alternates spending 2 weeks abroad and 2 weeks at home, and half of his life is being spent in a foreign country, away from his family, supervising manufacturers who would skimp on production if he weren't standing over them with a club. That's what it takes to get consistent quality out of China. They don't have the American manufacturing ethic of building the best quality product. Their manufacturing ethic is focused on building the cheapest cost product that will pass a performance standard, and often those standards are set pretty low, in spite of what the contracting company requested.
The bigger ones may be worth their weight in half gold, half silver, based purely on weight. 
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