RE: Decoy Brands
If you want honest to God will last a lifetime decoys, then put up the cash and buy some Herters from Cabelas. The burlaped deeks are great, and they have a kit where you can buy your own blank bodies, and burlapping your own is really not any harder than that paper mache pinyata everyone made back in 7th grade spanish class.
The GHG aren't bad, but you have to baby them. The paint chips off fairly easily. The original HOT BUY mallards sucked. The paint almost melted off of them when they hit the water. They changed the way they bake the paint on, and now they are substantially better, but don't get any ideas about beating those things around, because you'll have black decoys in no time flat.
G&H decoys are pretty tough as well.