My experience is that you can't expect more than a year or two out of a sub-$30 pump. The guys on here seem to get a lot more, which would be great.
I think most of those complaints were about the head (as you say). The Sport or Sprint allow you to put the Pro's Smarthead on there, so I'll just do that if I have a problem with the head. It's about $15 or $20 at Performance and that should be a year+ from purchase.