I find these numbers questionable. My main computer is about four years old, and its ports routinely see more than one connection per day; as a computer tech I'm always using USB stuff of one kind or another, and I can easily average 5 or 6 connections daily. No ports have failed yet.

Even if that were true, though, as much as I'm loving this phone I don't think I'll still be using it four years from now. I hope they'll put out something else Linux-powered in all that time, anyway; I used to like Android (I still think it's better than the common alternatives), but after using Maemo for only a few days it feels inelegant and cumbersome.

As for the charging-once-a-day issue, I have another... thing... planned. It involves more melt-glue. When I do it I'll post it here.

The female-to-female would have to be carried wherever I might need to interface with USB, and that is essentially everywhere. The male-to-male in contrast only needs to stay where I charge the phone, typically at home.
Also, it's easier to find cabled male plugs than female sockets (extension cords being just about the only source of the latter); in an emergency I could get a pair of scissors, gut the first two USB interface wires I found, tape the result and have a charging cable ready in a few minutes.

I gave a shot to resoldering the original port before I started this whole thing, but it proved entirely unfeasible. Every other method would have required wiring of contacts anyway.