Is the rubber physically cracking off?
If not, get a wet paper towel, scrub the windshield side of it. You'll get an absolutely insane amount of black filth off. Repeat until clean, see if they work better.
If the rubber is coming apart, yeah, you have to replace them. Can't tell you if the more expensive ones are worth 3x the cost, I tend to replace mine so infrequently that brands have changed by the time I get around to doing it. I do have a thing for the "single spring arc" type that aren't the normal multi-part spring hanger - they work well on my vehicles and I like how well they clean, but I honestly don't remember the cost on them. It's a rounding error on vehicle maintenance so I've not tried terribly hard to optimize it.