> Pioneer stood out with a nice look from outside, and cost-cutting low quality work inside.

That seems to be the standard among many appliance manufacturers these days. Slick as hell on the outside, junk/buggy electronics on the inside that may not be repairable 10 years from now, either because the part is no longer made/supported, or the expertise doesn't exist. We had an LG refrigerator that failed under warranty, and the designated local repair specialist never answered the phone.

What I really can't stand is inefficient cost-cutting.

Nvidia, Apple, Sony and Microsoft have all at one point (or maybe still do) use ridiculously cheap solder. This only saves them fractions of a cent on $300 devices. Every few years this leads to a device that will have it's solder crack from heat stress. This usually happens well outside the warranty window, and the manufacturer will swiftly give their customers the finger. Microsoft was the exception with the Red Ring of Death getting fixed outside of warranty. PS3 with the Yellow Light of Death? Sony gives you the finger. Nvidia card cooked or MacBook borked? Here's where you can buy our new model.

Another one is the proximity sensor on phones. On midrange models, these have been replaced by a "virtual proximity sensor". Saves Samsung or whoever maybe a couple of cents, seriously degrades your user experience.

There's hundreds of these things across all industries. Its a pretty clear symptom of the fact that businesses are no longer primarily interested in their customers, but rather their shareholders.

It's super cheap to copy the look of higher end equipment, materials might cost more (metal vs plastic) but that's baked into the unit cost. Actually making the thing work well requires paying for good engineers to do the upfront design work. If you can just buy a design for cheap from some Chinese whitebox firm, your initial investment in the product is very low.

Your 10 years is quite generous, methink...

Try updating a 10 year old smart phone with latest version of the os as provided by its manufacturer , up to date with latest CVE patches... :)