You're overlooking the $700 initial outlay in your cost/benefit analysis
Over ten years, your cost of ownership is $1200, or about the same price as a self-serviceable Zee Baas. Plus return shipping, and over the last ten years, the price of VS factory service has doubled, from $25 to $50. Who's to say it won't run 100 clams in 10 years?
I spent $35 on a Penn 704 33 years ago. $5 for a new shaft about 15 years ago, and other than drag washers, eveything's original.
It's getting close to the point where it's cost me a buck a year to own it.
20 years ago, I paid $10 for a used Squidder, and another 3 bucks for new drag washers. What's that work out to, about 65 cents a year?
Both of those reels still run like a top.
It's cost me $70 a year to own my $420 VS 250 and I've never even sent it in for service.
Unfortunately, you are right, in the bigger picture. They don't make either of those other two reels any more and most of the new stuff is disposable after a season or two.