In 2006, I started a blogstore called "Reasonable Goods", and this was the whole premise. I got a Consumer Reports subscription and did a bunch of online research and tried hard to pick the one I thought would work well for ~80% of people in a bunch of categories. The first category was "toaster", and I found a decently-reviewed $20 basic toaster from a major manufacturer. I started using the tagline "It shouldn't take all day to buy a toaster".
For the one-year anniversary post, I decided to write a follow-up article on the toaster. That's when I discovered, in an ironic twist, that a half-dozen of our flagship pick had caught on fire during operation, and because of this the model had been recalled by the manufacturer.
That's when I realized that trying to find a commodity item that will last for a decade+ is impossible (these days anyway). The same model isn't manufactured for a decade, so you can't rely on history. Major manufacturers make mistakes and/or cut costs and/or sell their brand, so you can't rely on reputation. Even a top-3 recommendation from Consumer Reports did not prevent me from picking a lemon despite my sincere best effort to avoid it.