Then they go and pay $1500 a month for 6 years.

No, they are paying $500/month for 6 years. The people who buy new cars (or often lease) are getting rid of them after 3 years - long before those small things are breaking. Those cars go to used car buyers who drive them for 6-10 years, and they eventually decide $500/month is worth getting something newer that doesn't have all those small annoyances, while the car goes on to someone poor who will live with anything that gets them around cheap.

That’s roughly a 100k vehicle.

That's definitely a case where being a little handy pays off- most of the little things that break on an older car can be fixed for free in a few minutes if you follow a youtube video or forum instructions, but a shop has to charge a lot. Usually it is a common problem, and there will be a known "trick" that fixes it simply. A shop is not going to re-solder a cracked relay or get a used plastic trim for $1 at a junkyard, they're going to replace the entire system with new parts from the manufacturer, at massive expense.

It's really important to have some "pride of ownership" in an older car, and fix anything that isn't perfect immediately- so they don't build up over time and make you feel like the whole vehicle isn't nice to use or own anymore.

paint's always going to be expensive... so wipe that bird poop off the car stat!

Again, some things aren't worth fixing, and they build up. The fabric on my headliner detached. Quickly went from "foam slightly exposed" to "sagging across the width of the backseat". Car is worth less than 5 grand, would be almost 1 to fix. It's a good thing I didn't, because brake troubles cost about as much and were necessary to fix.

I think a lot of waste goes into maintaining cars cosmetically.