Is the pricier slider actually worth it, or am I just paying for the name?

I've had both in weather-exposed spots and the difference shows up around year five or six. Put a Jeld Wen vinyl slider on a lake place about eight years ago, north facing, gets hammered by wind off the water. The door itself held up fine, no warping, glass sealed tight. But the rollers are what got it. By year six it was dragging and by year seven the kids were lifting it every time they opened it, same death your current door is going trough. The rollers on that one are a plastic-ish composite and once they wear a flat spot you're shopping for replacement parts and hoping they still make your model. I did find replacements but it was a hassle.

The Andersen I've got on my own house, also a windward wall, is coming up on ten years and the rollers still feel like the day it went in. That's the real difference you're paying for. It's not the glass or the frame, it's the hardware. The Andersen uses stainless ball-bearing rollers and you can actualy adjust them with a screwdriver through the bottom edge, so when the door starts to sag you turn two screws and it's gliding again. That adjustability is the thing nobody mentions when they compare prices.

Also worth checking: how easy it is to get parts down the road. Andersen has been running the same roller and hardware design for a long time so parts are everywhere. Jeld Wen has changed hardware over the years between series and some older rollers get harder to find. If the double price is a killer, a middle path is asking what the next Jeld Wen series up costs. The base vinyl line is where the cheap rollers live. thier better lines step up in hardware noticeably and ussually land somewhere between the two quotes you got.

On the blinds, skip them. I have them in one door and honestly they're fine, but with a dog headbutting glass they'll get rattled out of alignment and you'll be fishing around inside the pane with a wand. Curtains or nothing.

Whatever door you pick, the install on that north wall matters more than the brand. My old slider leaked for years and I blamed the door untill I pulled it out and found the builder had just caulked the flange and called it a day. When I did the replacement I used a sill pan with flashing tape over the rough opening and that's what acutally fixed it. Two doors later, no water, no rot, and this was on the storm side of the house. Ask your installer exactly how he's waterproofing the sill before you sign anything, becuase the quote difference won't matter if water gets in behind either one.

Before you write off the cheaper option entirely, know that alot of those early roller deaths come from neglect, not the part itself. Track fills up with grit on a windward wall and the rollers grind themselves to death in a couple seasons. I've kept sliders alive for decades by vacuuming the track every month or so and rubbing a stick of candle wax on it, same trick my dad used on his screen door back in the day. Costs nothing and takes five minutes. Also pop the rollers out and shoot a drop of oil on them once a year if you can get at them. Whichever door lands in that opening, if you stay on top of the track the hardware lives a lot longer than the horror stories suggest.

We put the cheaper vinyl slider in a rental house about seven years ago and it's been ok, but the thing that actualy broke first wasn't the rollers, it was the handle and latch. Cheap plastic piece cracked and the door wouldn't lock. Replacement took weeks to ship. Also check the screen door that comes with it, ours came with rollers that were junk out of the box and the screen constantly jumps the track. If kids and a dog are involved you'll use that screen more than you think. The main door glides fine so far but ours is on a covered side of the house, so I can't say how it'd hold up taking weather like yours.

One thing to check before you compare those two numbers side by side: make sure both quotes are for the same glass package. A lot of times the cheaper quote is base double pane and the pricier one has low-e coating and argon, so part of that gap isn't hardware at all. Ask the installer to break down what's actually in each door, then you'll know what the hardware upgrade really costs you. On the north wall the better glass might matter more than you'd think anyway.