[captainmoody]

When I was doing tv repair 20 years ago, The most common junk sets were the cheap japanese tube portables.
The customers would never go for repairs on them or they would be beyond economical repair and we would have to toss them out.
The RCA and Magnavox sets that came in with lots of hours on them were pretty much toast. I remember when replacing tubes sometimes the board would break from the slight pressure of plugging the tube in.
Remember, These tv's were already 10 and 15 years old and actually gave great service for being used everyday.
The sony sets had a super picture when new, But went downhill pretty quick on the crt emission, Not to mention the scr issues with them.
Zenith sets in my opinion were built for the long run. Even 36 years later after minor repairs they still perform great! If you have one of their sets with the "super gold video guard tuner" all you need to do on that after three decades is wipe the contacts clean! Zenith to me is the winner on longevity.
My favorite however, is the much hated "works in a drawer" sets by Motorola. Yes, Many were tossed but if repaired and set up properly last for years. Don't forget, Their last models had a switching power supply starting in '72 which was quite advanced at the time and most tv guys back then did not understand them and did not want to deal with them repair wise.
Now practically all sets use them.