Real world life expectancy of a high end cartridge?

Moreover to benjie’s comment, how does the suggested experiment “prove” that stylast is Freon? There are any number of liquids that evaporate without leaving a residue.

 I haven’t used stylast for several years. I was skeptical of the idea to use magic eraser. Then I used a microscope to look at Styli before and after a careful magic eraser treatment. That experiment converted me to magic eraser for cleaning my stylus. No liquids. It’s quite remarkable.
I have no beef with stylast. I certainly never had a problem with it. But where there is smoke, there is sometimes fire.  So I prefer not to take a chance.

Freon boils at minus 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Freon at normal room temp is a gas. But that's probably just the cheap freon everyone else uses. Obviously, Stylast uses the really good room temperature liquid freon. 

It can be kept in the liquid phase when under high pressure, but I agree with your basic point as regards Stylast.

My point would be, how much can it really matter? Pressure on the stylus contact patch is on the order of a ton per square inch. Pressure like that, whatever dirt is on there, ain't gonna be on there for long. Add to that, no record ever is perfectly clean. Cannot be. Even if it were somehow absolutely clean going on the platter, the second the stylus touches down it begins microscopically scraping and shaving and scattering tiny little bits of vinyl all over the place. So forget about that.

This is yet another one of those areas guys fret and stew and fuss over what don't amount to a hill of beans. You clean enough to get the obvious crud off. All the rest is marketing. 

@millercarbon I think there are two sorts of problems caused by dirt on the stylus. In the long term build up of baked up crud is of course a problem and a good thorough cleaning regimen is needed to prevent that. But more problematic and more annoying is the quick build up of a ball of fluff. My hypothesis is that this little ball actually interferes with the ability of the stylus to ride the groove and is often audible as a halo or buzz around the sound -- like mild mistracking.  Some stylus profiles are more prone to this than others but pre brushing each disc and a quick check/clean after each side keeps this under control. I use a tacky pad for the quick cleans and the magic eraser for deeper cleans but checking with a scope after each couple of plays allows me to get on top of issues before they arise.

That's all assuming you haven't bent your cantilever 90 degrees -- which was the point of the thread after all. Arguing about 500, 1000 or 2000 hours is besides the point if your expensive jewelry has bought it along the way!