Why won't these last longer than a year?

I love SanDisk MP3 players but I have had the worst luck with the Fuze+.  I have had to get a replacement 3 times in the past two years.  I have finally ran out of luck in that my protection plan has expired and my player has died.  Has anyone had similar problems?  I know in the past it had to do with the color of the player, some colors worked better than others-for some strange reason-but I have had the blue, red and purple all have died on me in less than a year.  Amazingly enough I have two older models (Sansa and Fuze) made by SanDisk and they still work.  What is the deal? I would hate to switch to a competitor, I’m just looking for quality and longevity here. Has anyone else had this problem?

well what was the problem that made you return it or whatever ?

i’ve never had to rma any portable device from any company

actualy i think i’ve rma’d one device and it was a hard drive back in 2003 ish

and that includes tons of every pc related part imaginable i’ve bought since

tons of mobos’ ram cpus gpus etc

my current fuze+ i bought 12/12/2010 still works fine

aside from a gradual slow decrease in memory charge longevity

I got my 16GB in Nov. 2010, still working OK (apart from its quirks).

What was the specific problem(s) that you had with yours?

The colour issues could be related to capacity. Not all sizes in all colours. 16GB in Black only.