I've either been fairly fortunate or haven't beat up my laptops as much. Most recently I've been using Thinkpad X140e. There are some work-related reasons why I have this particular model, but overall the Thinkpad has been reasonably built and I like the 11.6in screen form factor. I like having a laptop rather than Chromebook because I do some offline photo processing and also occasionally boot into Linux. My criteria list would be slightly different but on your list above here is how I would rate things:

1. reliability: 7 of 10; no problems yet and reasonably built but not going higher until I have more time with it.
2. price: 6 of 10; this particular model is $400, so beyond your target range
3. performance: 7 of 10; ok at this particular point, but not speedy compared to more recent laptops
4. weight: 4 pounds; depends on your reference points but size and weight work for me.