yeah! I've never worked on a car over about 35-40 years old that did not have a significant list of minor repairs and upgrades,
that were needed, I at one time had the opportunity to talk too and discuss that with an actual G.M. engineer.
his response to the question was that the design parameters were that the car last about 10 years with few major issues,
thus if an engineer selected components that would in theory last 20 plus years , too be used,
even if the cost increase was minimal, or even non-existent, it was almost always rejected.
he said he at one time was working on a designing a wind-shield wiper motor assembly, vendors offered several motor and switch component designs.
G.M. settled on a mid priced option even though a significantly smaller and more compact and more robust design was less than 70 cents more.