I agree with you that if companies took that approach it would be better but look at the evidence in hand. The UE900 is not a well made product. I think it would be naive to suggest that an actual meeting took place in which it was decided that they would deliberately aim for this in the design. However, The fact remains that the black plastic area which joins the cables to the main body of the earphone is cheap and nasty. The memory wire around the ears is poor and the jack cheap. The strain relief on the cables is virtually non existent. The UE logos wear off and everything is made of plastic. However, there is no real excuse for using poor materials because they are a £300 pair of earphones. Thank God they sound so good and look OK from a distance because the money certainly isn't going on production costs.
