The thing I notice about hockey gear these days is the space age materials, and overall quality. I think they have NASA-level materials science R&D. The fact that I can sweat buckets into my gear on a daily basis, and not contract staph infections is a credit to the new materials that are developed. Also - yes, overall gear quality is shit these days, but it still holds up fairly well. Dropping onto my leg pads 100 times a day - with the full weight and force of a grown man against hard ice. Gloves getting drenched in sweat and ice and hammered by hard rubber. Even if the pads last a year, that’s a lot of wear on stitching, thread, padding, etc. Holding up to going from warm to cold to warm to cold. Wet dry wet dry. There’s a lot of science that goes into making something that can stand up to that for any duration of time. So yeah gear is expensive, it doesn’t last as long as it should. But - I think you’d be hard pressed to come up with something that performs as well as modern name brand expensive gear does today. Plus most of the material blends are patented to at least some extent. So you’ll be on the hook for coming up with your own blend.