I often think that maybe they have been penny wise and pound foolish. When you take into consideration that when we where at sea most of the maintenance was carried out while we where at sea enabling less time in dock for repairs like they do now, if that is what they do. When we entered a port everything would have been overhauled and working. I know that we get a lot of rust buckets coming into port here in Oz. About the only maintenance they had years ago was to get the bottom scrapped and that was done while under articles most of the time.
That's the way the mop flops.
My thanks to Brian for this site.