Anecdotally, I'm on my third magsafe 1 charger. They are all shit. My GFs current magsafe 1 has like 3 patches of tape throughout the cable after the block, and a big beefy wad on the L connector. I've ran into a couple other people still rocking the 2012 mbp, and they are all on their second or third magsafe charger too.

They used to not have that grippy coating and I think those smooth cables worked great (until I ran over mine with a desk chair), even the original ipod cables were pretty solid in my experience, but every L shaped magsafe 1 is a time bomb just like any other apple cable these days.