Bondtech worn down to nubs :-/  

Bondtech worn down to nubs :-/

The Bondtech gears on my E1 recently starting making more noise, and under extruding. I checked it out and found that the there was a fair amount of metallic dust collecting in there, and the gears were visibly worn and no longer making a solid connection. Has anyone else experienced this? I print quite a bit, but I'd say that I'm easily under 500 hours total on the MMU. Looking at getting a replacement set I'm seeing that they are $50 - which seems absolutely crazy if they are wearing out this fast. I just wrapped up a warranty replacement of my hot end after a crazy amount of jamming I was having, so on the one hand I'm hesitant to go though that again - on the other I suspect that 1) I had an above average amount of wear from those gears constantly pushing against jammed filament and 2) WTF are these gears made of that they simultaneously cost $50 and can't stand up to what I'd still consider normal use? Maybe I just got a bad set?

Searching the forums I haven't seen anyone else with this problem, so I thought I'd throw it out there... Let me know if you've seen this yourself, if it's a legit warranty issue, or if I should just suck it up and spend the $50 on a replacement set.