Chewy, I have yet to find a wader that will last me longer than about 6 months of fishing. But I fish HARD, and am wading all the time, in some pretty nasty country at times. So 6 months translates into about 3-400 hours of actaul standing and walking in them use.

My waders almost always fail due to compression leaks in the neoprene feet, which would happen with any wader brand. If I really thought a $400 pair of Simms would last me long enough to be cost-effective, I would get someone to buy me a pair to try. So far Simms hasn't sen fit to send me a pair to use to convince me to give them that kind of money down the road.