Subpar equipment

Has anyone else had the issue of their X1 Modem/router randomly going out for no apparent reason other than poor manufacturing/programming? I moved to a new house 5 years ago and it almost seems like a yearly event now where all of a sudden, my X1 gateway just stops working. Of course, Xfinity wants to send out a tech 3 days later to check, but with no power outages or damage to the lines, connections, hardware what is there to check? I've had to drive to the Xfinity store and swap modems 3 times now (so I'm on my 4th gateway in 5 years) just to get going again. It seems they are copying a page from Apple/Samsung and sending out the death signal so that customers have to come out of pocket unnecessarily...I sincerely hope that is not the case. And what is it with not being able to request to talk to a live agent via chat or the phone? Where has customer service gone?