In article , Arklin K.
wrote:

nonsense. they may not be as rugged as a d3 class camera, but they do
*not* break the moment you drop or jostle them.

While that's probably true, it's undeniable that this teeny tiny piece of
plastic that holds the bayonet mount of my Nikon lens onto my Nikon
camera broke from being dropped a very short distance onto a hard
concrete floor.

duh. guess what happens when you drop *any* lens onto a concrete floor.

Also, looking at the pictures I posted, I can't imagine anyone denying
that this is a weak link in the lens mount.

it's a cheap lens. what the hell do you expect?

If that weak link were engineered out of better materials, what would
have happened?

the price would have been higher and it would have been heavier too.

I don't know:
a) What I hope would have happened is ... nothing.

hope all you want but if you drop a lens onto a concrete floor, the
lens is not going to be in the same condition it was prior to impact.

b) But, maybe dropping the camera would have broken something else.

probably.

But if (b) is the answer, how the heck do 'war photographers' get their
job done? What I do in daily life can't even be 1 millionth of what they
do with their equipment.

they spend more money on equipment and they don't trash stuff.

Q: Given I use the camera every day for personal use (I'm an old guy who
isn't jumping out of airplanes anymore so it's pretty tame stuff), what
would you recommend is a sturdy SLR that won't break like this Nikon did?

i'd recommend you learn to not drop stuff. maybe buy some straps to tie
the stuff to your body.