I'm hard on irons, I drop them a lot and I go through a lot. I want steam, I want hot, I'm ok with auto off but I want it to stay on for long enough to press a long seam. I've found no better results for more expensive ones, in fact they tend to take being dropped badly and last even a shorter period... so now every couple of years I buy the cheapest iron with the extra long cord. If the cheapest one is $15, this is $20. Used to be the cheap one was $12 and this was $15.
My current iron is a higher quality iron that I got from the thrift store. Don't know how many more drops it can take...