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> CVT transmissions

Well, you can take money out of an ATM machine to pay for that. Just try to remember your PIN number.

timing chains at the back of the engine

Smallblock Chevys have a timing chain at the front but it's basically never a failure point. I agree with your other points, however; the trend is to optimise for short-term efficiency and cost, resulting in complex and relatively fragile designs.

The flip side: is it beneficial to anyone to have cars junked at 200k miles with water pumps that have another 500k miles on them? Overengineering has costs, in both price and weight.

Yeah, I'm adding Audi to the list. Car just totaled for a blown engine with no determining reason a few months out of warranty. Audi won't touch it. Not worth the engine replacement cost.

Not sure it would make sense to design cars to fail right when they get them back from the lessee?