Jim:
You're 52, I'm on the high side of 55. I know what you're saying.
My mother lives in the house my parents bought new in 1968. Still has same furnace and, to my knowledge (and my Mom is not one to withhold complaints -- maybe where I get it from), it has had a small fraction of problems in its nearly 40 years compared to my 14-year-old high-tech, high-efficiency with annual PM and regular filter changes. She keeps hers producing 80 degrees during winter. We keep our better insulated house at 68 and the poor furnace keeps getting stressed out.
Had an old house in western NY that had an old coal furnace converted to natural gas. That thing looked like it was holding up the house, but it ran like a Triple Crown winner. Had an old-model gas furnace for five years when I first moved to PA. Not one service or PM call. I'm no Luddite, but, good Lord, it seems "reliability" and "dependability" are fading from the dictionary at things become more high-tech.
It's not just furnaces and AC, though. My Dad used to do his own car repairs and maintenance. Be hard-pressed to do some of that today without your own diagnostic computer. Can't tell ya off-hand how many TVs, VCRs, coffeemakers, toasters, etc. we've gone through over the past 35 years. And the merchants almost always try to sell you a service contract. The applicances are so cheap, if they go blooie after a couple years of use, you don't bother getting them fixed like in the old days -- although I have fixed a couple small appliances, as well as washer and dryer. (And yeah, I'm gonna get a spare ignitor and swap it out before a service call next time. And I have a couple CO detectors with annual battery changes.)
One of my current low-level peeves is the gummint deadline for making all our analog TVs obsolete unless we buy digital converters for each one or put up antennas (ha! like in the old days). Who on this little, skrewed up blue ball really needs gol'durned new-fangled hi-def plasma/lcd/whatever to see the pancaked pores on Uma Thurman's face or each "blade" of astroturf or the gory innards on one of the many copycat versions of CSI?
Jim