>>As an implant hopefully will last the rest of your life, selecting more expensive ones I could understand, if there was a difference measured long term: remember the french breast implant scandal for an example to avoid.

A cemented Exeter hip may well last the rest of your life, or certainly well into the 20-year range. The smarty-pants cool newer ones may only last a decade or 15 years, or less if it's one of the flops of which there are more than a few. The trouble is that it's not easy to test these things for 20 years before you start using them ;-) and if people got a dud, usually the manufacturer stumps up compensation/redo. Perhaps if MS (and the evangelists) had to compensate people who obediently jumped aboard a bandwagon and then got Foxed in less than (say) ten years, there'd be less churn and more care.