Personally my problem has never really been the leather wearing out, it’s almost always the soles that give out on me long before that.

And failing that it’s usually other hardware like zippers

The only pair I really remember having an issue with the leather was a pair of steel toed work boots, and they developed some holes on the toes because I tended to use them to kick things around. Not too many materials hold up too well to being banged around between steel and a rock on whatever, so I don’t exactly blame the leather there.

New pair costs $400- something, and I consider them to have been worth every penny of that. Before I got these I normally got about 2 years out of a pair of cheaper, non-recraftable boots that usually cost me north of $200.

Recrafting cost $280 (and I suspect it could have been even cheaper if I went to a local cobbler,) so assuming I get at least 3 years out of them, still cheaper than buying a new pair of the cheaper boots, and definitely cheaper than buying a new pair of these3

Yeah, unfortunately options are a little limited as far as what most people would want as an everyday shoe. Most of the recraftable shoes out there are either boots or what most people would probably consider to be sort of a dress shoe.

There’s still some options out there, Allen Edmonds has some recraftable sneaker-type shoes, though they may not be everyone’s cup of tea (they’re certainly not mine)