alt Hacker NewsIKEA furniture can hold up very well if you follow the instructions precisely and don't disassemble them (in most cases).
We have furniture from IKEA that we bought at least five years ago that still functions great. A mattress we got from them is absolutely stellar with a memory foam topper; all of our guests love it. I think our coffee table is ten years old now.
However, everything goes to hell once you try to take it apart. This is why our mattresses are not on IKEA bed frames. Taking them apart has ALWAYS weakened them significantly. (We use Thuma Japanese joinery bed frames, which are AMAZING for moving and very high quality).
Which is kind of moot when you're talking about high-quality furniture, as they are usually single pieces as well.
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For what is worth, I had an IKEA kitchen for 12+ years, we disassembled it and gave it to some people that could reuse it, and it's still fine. OTOH my IKEA couch fell apart in half that time, but my wife fixed it up and it lasted until we renovated. We gave that away too.
IKEA has a wide range of products, some fall apart quickly, some last longer.
Five years is not much in terms of a furnitures lifespan, i own some pieces my grand grandmother already used that got passed down the generations.
I highly doubt this will happen with ikea furniture. But thats the tradeoff for cheaper and affordable stuff i guess.
I've started wood-gluing together my IKEA and other flat-pack furniture to try and increase its usable life since - as you said - it's counterproductive to dis/re-assemble most of it anyways. I've not been at it long enough to claim effectiveness, but so far nothing has started to wobble.