have a mititouyou with over 30 years of hard use, lives in my tool belt and other places never in the case, . Its yellowed and looks like crap and still works perfectly. Left on batteries last long. ILl have no trouble replacing it same brand and almost had to once as it was lost, fell off the back of the bench found it in a tool box. . ITs lived in sawdust and could not care less, at times it didnt slide smoothly and I probably did things you should not do and it didnt care. I did buy a Lee Valley one that allows you to convert from one scale to another one has no wheel on it so fine adjust was a pain, poor design maybe improved.
One thing I did was scratch a line on the face so im always reading three digits, essentially separating the half thou. just makes it easier to read.