My first thought is usually repair - in the case of the boiler, even at 120 quid I'd probably have repaired it, if I hadn't thought that other things were on the way out.
Often it is, but there is also economy of scale. An item churned out in the
100s of thousands is one hell of a lot cheaper to manufacture than one turned out in the 10s of thousands, even if it is identical.I think that you'll find that the standard of manufacture of modern monitors *has* fallen. On the other hand, it may not have fallen as far as you think, 'cos again unit price falls with volume. I remember reading some time ago that something like 85 percent of all bare monitor screens were actually produced by the same company (Samsung) - and that's one hell of a lot of screens! I don't know what the situation today is though.
Steve W