As tjspiel pointed out, the sand can be as nasty as the salt. Furthermore, both of them are lying around in abundance and can coat every part of the bike even on a perfectly dry day. I suppose I could reduce the wear rate by cleaning the entire drivetrain every day, but that just doesn't seem worth the hassle. Better to stick to inexpensive drivetrain parts and just replace them frequently. There's still plenty of regular maintenance required for reliability--lots of lubing to make sure things don't freeze up, and I usually bring the bike in for a thaw/drivetrain clean every couple of weeks.

Besides, with winter fat, heavy gloves, and heavy studded tires, any bike I ride in the winter will feel sluggish.