At this point I'm assuming that if an appliance is only providing the bare minimum 2 years warranty (manufacturer warranty, extended store warranty doesn't "count"), then it's crap, and I should look for a more expensive model.

So far that has worked decently well : my kitchen water heater (3 year warranty) is going on nearly a decade and only now is starting to have issues, while the previous one, albeit significantly cheaper (minimum warranty), only lasted half a year.

(One should not underestimate the cost / effort spent dealing with a poorly working / broken tool.)