Thanks for posting! I'm enjoying the website you introduced.
To me, this website is part of a larger trend of mindfulness in purchasing (or not! purchasing). Le Creuset is freakin' amazing; my husband and I love to cook and use the hell out of our dutch oven, are we gonna buy a Le Creuset for $300+ when you can get a really nice dutch oven from Costco for $50 (on clearance three years ago) that was well-reviewed by Consumer Reports? Nope. The $50 dutch oven will do us fine and will last a long time.
The problem with an obsession with quality is that it can still lead to a consumer mindset that still produces overspending and wastefulness. What about the person who buys all the shiny, gorgeous, well made stuff on that website but they don't even cook? For example, I can't tell you how many times I've read a cost-per-use analysis of a Vitamix, and been theoretically convinced that we NEED A VITAMIX!!! But we have a Ninja that works fine, plus a stick (emersion) blender, and we don't use either one more than twice/week. Yeah, the Ninja is going to wear out eventually. We've had it four years. It was $90. Let's say it wears out in two years--we got six years of use for $90. A Vitamix at Costco is $350. At that rate, it will take ~20 years for the Vitamix to pay for itself for what we would have paid for 4 Ninjas. Yes, 4 blenders is a waste to the environment, so there's definitely that to consider. But...I dunno, seems like a lot of money to have tied up in a blender.
A lot of the time I've found that the best policy is instead of buying once, to "buy never" and just be content to do without.
When that's not an option, the big win is to find high quality items for a bargain by looking to buy used, refurbished, or some kind of fire sale situation. You educate yourself on brands that are built to last and then wait to see if A. you really need the item, thus leading to a low cost per use and B. you can find it for a discount in some way.
We do so much cooking that All Clad is a huge score for us; we look for it at garage sales and TJ Maxx and buy pieces at a discount whenever we find them.
Random observation: LL Bean is pretty badass when it comes to their return policy. They just replaced my ten year old suitcase for free. The wheels had broken, and they exchanged it for a brand new one no questions asked. Ok, loyal customer for life, here.