Can you name those durable models? I went through a lot of KV-300H because they felt nice, but don't live nearly as long as even a cheap mechanical: I grind through one in a year — by the end of which it looks like it was worked over with sandpaper, and some buttons stop registering key presses.

Nope. But I’ve read some reviews on the recent kv-300hs which stated they may have been “downgraded”, or it depends on a region/factory. Despite that I bought another one this spring in a local hw store for a new workplace and it doesn’t feel any worse yet.