You shouldn’t iron or dry clean BDUs not because they are permanent press, but because it destroys the coating.
I’ve gone through I-don’t-know-how-many irons in my life. A couple the kitties knocked off the ironing board. Others started over- or underheating. Or that unwanted drip developed.
The main time I use one is when I’m sewing. Sometimes I need to touch up a few things but the old-timey ironing of boxers, dishtowels, pillowcases, 100% cotton shirts, sheet tops is long outdated for me.
I don’t like that everything offered in the way of appliances these days has a bazillion bells and whistles. Just give me hi-low-medium settings and a steam function and I’m good to go.
I suspect that built-in obsolescence has crept into nearly all household items. Most household items I’ve owned last a percentage of the time of things my parents owned. (My inlaw’s kitchen clock is still running after seventy years. We’ve been through four or five. Great-grandma’s weighty iron is still usable if you want to heat it on the stove. Heh)
A part breaks and the cost is more than replacing the whole item. Or you can find no one who is able to fix it anymore. Or the part is no longer available. How else are you going to keep the economy up and running?
So I don’t spend much on anything I seldom use. I’d be more apt to paraphraseLynn Bodoni’s comment to, “Sometimes you get what you pay for.”
So what? In my day, the same was (allegedly) true, but any time we were deployed, we got new uniforms anyway. At base? BDU’s better be pressed. In the field (exercise), not so much. Being deployed? New uniforms.