I bet these engineers are working not in the toster industry. In some other areas like TVs, mobiles, computers and their parts, home electronics, its a must to limit their life because you as a manufacturer would have heavy losses because of legacy product support (spare parts stocking, legacy support staff, extending licences, upgrading software to be compatible with current things).

Medical and industry products on the other hand are long lasting, but their cost does not end with initial high price - it includes regular OEM part replacements, manufacturer calibrations, OEM consumables, upgrades and etc. at the same high price, which covers legacy support costs for manufacturer.