So, as a more direct parallel - Magmatic engines should break after a few days of use because they're a spammable and essentially generate RF for free, and players should be forced to experience more advanced RF power options like Big Reactors?
Somehow IC2exp didn't find it necessary to make geothermal, water mills or solar panels degenerate after a few days of use to force players into the more interesting steam or nuclear options.
My buildcraft cobblestone pipes don't decay because I didn't upgrade to gold.
And yes -leather armor gets used up, as does diamond. Neither one just disappears after 2 in game days
Pretend when you place a daybloom (or any passive) down, it has the capacity to make 100 mana.
And, for arguments sake, an iron chestplate has (for my example) 100 durability.
Every time your daybloom gives off 1 mana, your iron chestplate takes 1 durability of damage. They both disappear at the same time.
The intention behind the daybloom and nightshade aren't to be used as a main source of mana, they are made to be a stepping stone to get you into Botania. The 100 mana (it isn't actually this amount) that the daybloom gives you is enough to get started to making an Endoflame. The endoflame, when played with only Botania, isn't hard to automate, but runs on a resource you can't get infinitely. So you use the endoflame until you can get the next best flower for your needs.
For example, if you are the sort of person who goes out and kills lots of mobs, the Rosa Arcana would probably be the next stop.
If you make huge farms, maybe the Gourmarylls.
The list goes on.
Think of the generating flora like tiers.
T1: Daybloom/Nightshade/Hydrogeneas. They work, but are slow, pretty crappy, and not worth the effort remaking every 3 days.
T2: Endoflame. It works, can be automated, can be used to supply mana for the rest of your time playing, but isn't the "best" way to do so.
T3: The rest of the non-elven knowledge generating flora. They are pretty good, with a variety of ways to make mana, at different speeds/amount produced
T4: Elven knowledge flowers. These are the creme-de-la-creme of generating flora, able to produce insane amounts of mana (if you use them correctly)
And as for your machine thing... actually agree with you. They SHOULD break, maybe not the whole machine just vanishing, but having to refit gears, or something (I believe Asie talked about, possibly, making this a thing in Buildcraft).
As for the pipes, that isn't a fair argument to make, as you are comparing generation methods with transportation methods. You would compare iron chests to big reactors
