My son's Elite died on him about 6 months ago, so I started letting him use my 360. Swapped out my HDD (mine was probably a launch system). Since I'd barely used my 360, I figured I'd get a solid year out of it before it died a horrible, horrible 3RoD on him. Nope. 3 months later (and about 4 days after he got a new game) it died after relatively light use from him over those 3 months.
This house will probably never see another Xbox in it again. Which is sad to say, as we had 3 Xbox's in our home, each logging in hundreds of hours of gameplay. But my boy is saving up his money for a PS3 now in hopes it lasts longer for him.