Although I agree that $80 is a steep price, I don't see what the lifespan of a string has to do with it's price. Price will vary depending on the cost of the materials/equipment, the time taken to tie the string, the warranty, the demand for the product and the level of competition. A machine-made string will always be cheaper to make than a similar hand-made one. However, I'm never using a machine-made string unless quality control goes way up. I have noticed an increase in quality over the last year or two, but most are not as good as a custom string maker's hand-made product.

Although I'm not seeing strings with as much stretch as they had in the past, I'm still frequently seeing strings that will creep 1/2" - 1" in a year's time. Most machine-made servings are still behind in quality and exact length control seems to be missing. I suspect that machine-made strings will continue to see improvement and that it will become easy to get a top quality string and cables for $20-$30, I'm just not sure that is a consistant result at this time.

Every now and then, I take a stock string off a new bow and look it over real careful. I take the servings off, check the length, number of twists, how it was tied, etc. A short time ago, I did this with as a very big-name string company's product. I can say without question that the string they put on this bow was not the same quality of the strings they custom make, and sell independent of any bow. String quality is not obvious to most who buy bows and it is seldom swings a sale. It's a cost saving area for most companies and although many have increased the quality of their stock strings, they haven't put on the very best. Personally, I much prefer to spend my money on the very best string, rather than the "very best" bow (whatever that might be).