I want to add an anecdote to inject some reality into this discussion. I bought a wetsuit from Patagonia in 2009 (I think). They were super new to the wetsuit industry and I paid  300+$ during their &quot;half price&quot; sale. Full price was ~600$ and 300 was the price for the top of the line &quot;money is no object&quot; wetsuit.<p>For someone who surfs a lot (me) wetsuits traditionally last about three years&#x2F;seasons. Last year my patagonia wetsuit was showing it&#x27;s age and I brought it to the store. They sent it to their repair shop and the repair folks re-taped every seam, put new knee patches in and installed a new car-key-loop (original suit lacked one) <i>free of charge</i>.<p>The neoprene is starting to break down and the suit isn&#x27;t as warm as it used to be. I anticipate I&#x27;ll get this season out of it and maybe 1-2 more.<p>The company is fanatical about the quality of the products they produce and even more fanatical about their support&#x2F;repair for those products.