the sony service saga

i am the proud owner of a sony tv. nay; i was, till recently.

the tv which worked fine for almost 7 years switched itself off a month back.
and the great journey to get it repaired started there.

as usual i tried the local repair man first as it appeared to be a simple problem
with the power supply. and as usual he messed it up.

i then called up the sony service centre. they sent a man who explanined  the sony
policy not to touch any thing touched by locals. he also admonished us for not
adhering to the sony policy   which is manadatory for all those who own sony products.

i sent an email to the address i got from a sony website. they too went thru the process of
teaching sony etiquette  but sent a more reasonable man . he took the the  pcb to the workshop
and promised to try and repair it.
a few days  later i got a call which said that sony  doesnt keep components of  models older than
seven years and therefore replacement is not available.  i insisted on repair as  i didnt want to
throw away a tv  which is fine except some burnout in the power supply segment. ( the preformance
was great till it went off ; no problem with the picture or sound quality ).
finally sony relented but said it would cost more than rupees six thousand. when i pointed
out that a new tv would cost that much if it is sony and much less if it is any other brand
they advised me to upgrade  to their new models.
why should i ?
  if sony is discarding its old models so esaily and frequently  why should i pay a premium
  and buy a sony product  ? i can as well go for a cheaper product and throw it away once
  it fails. i can do it more often as i  pay less.
just for the record what exactly is the unique selling point of sony and the basis for the
higher price of its products. it cannot be 'service' by any reckoning