I love all my machines, plastic, electronic, mechanical etc. They all have something that they do better than any of the others and that's why I have them. I don't really consider any of them to be throw away machines since they tend to last a long time even when being used under adverse conditions. I am hard on machines, sewing long hours and often pushing them to their limits in terms of fabrics, threads, etc. I have only broken one so far and it was probably a bit of a lemon to begin with, still, it sewed well for 7 years before the feed dog mechanism went. Then I used it for another couple of years as a backup quilter since it still did a great job at FMQ. I could have had the feed dog mechanism repaired, but it would have cost at about the same as buying a new one at $320, so that's what I did. I guess in that sense, the machine would have been considered to be a throw away by some, but I've known folks who have the high end non-throw away machines that also found repairs to be more costly than buying a new machine. So not sure at what point/price point a machine would be considered a throw away machine these days.
Rob