Sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the design is flawed. The materials do break down over time and will fail eventually no matter what. There is a balance between cost and longevity. I think plastics are generally used because you get a decent balance on that front. Sure it would be nice if the chassis were made of a titanium alloy with a diamond screen, but the cost on that would be absurd (yes I went to the extreme intentionally, I don’t think this is actually what anyone is asking for). Could Purism move to less plastic and increase the cost, sure, but ultimately that aspect is very much a balancing act. I don’t think the hinge of the laptop is quite comparable to what’s going on with the phone, and again I don’t think the hinge issue is necessarily with the design.
Also Purisms expertise doesn’t appear, to me, to be in the mechanical and material sciences and in turn probably isn’t best suited for R&D of a new hinge design; instead moving to a different industry standard design as they have done seems to be a more balanced approach.
Sometimes “good enough” is just that, good enough. This also allows Purism to continue to push forward with PureOS on the laptop as well as other things they are doing different from the industry such as their hardware kill switches on the laptop.
I appreciate the desire for a longer lasting laptop, but in this case I think the more pragmatic thing would be available replacement parts.