Even if manufacturers over time might be able to cut corners such that a
drive would often fail in its second year without too much risk of
first-year failures, it seems unlikely that the cost savings could make up
for the resulting bad publicity.

That may not matter. The corporate
world-view is often only 3-6 months.

"If you haven't shown tangible results
on the P&L in six months, someone
else gets your job."

For managers with the authority to
make such cost-of-manufacture/durability tradeoff decisions, the inevitable bad
publicity may be outside their window of fiscal reality. If they cut costs,
even
at the expense of real-world mtbf,
the difference shows up on the balance
sheet immediately, while they may be working somewhere else by the time the
bill for that decision comes due.

How many times in how many different
corners of the industry have you seen
this before?