Ian Stirling wrote:

I suspect it's that steel is more noisy, to some extent.

And personally, I love the concealed element feature.
I typically have around a cupfull of water in the kettle, which it boils
really fast.
It will happily boil half a cup.

Not to mention the topic of the moment - energy saving.

If you boil an extra cup of water 4 times a day, you spend 3 pounds a
year extra, and spend an extra several hours a year waiting on the kettle.

First off if it is heating quickly it will be throwing off the
dissolved air in water quickly. Comparison with water that has boiled
then allowed to cool (thus removing a lot of the dissolved air) might
be illuminating.

And the fact it is a rapid heater is not a cause to believe it is a
rapid cooler. These things are made by slave labourers in Chinese
prisons or on a free market where the workers are paid something like
5 pence an hour and work 80 hour weeks.

They are not going to be highly motivated with those Victorian
conditions, are they?

30 years ago a kettle had chrome plate and was fitted with easily
repairable elements. Build quality was very very good. (For the era.)

When I fill my kettle I put one pint in it and pour one pint out (as I
drink tea or coffee in 1 pint mugs.) Immediately I empty the kettle, I
refill it as I don't like the idea of the thing overheating. As an
earlier poster stated, it is embedded and cannot cool like the old
fashioned type do.

I presume that is the answer to why they don't seem to last long,
though I may have just been unlucky initially. I cannot say.

My first experiences with the style was the poor longevity experienced
by other posters on this thread but with this immediacy about replacing
the water, there has been no problem.