snip

The only shutter I have had go bad so far was on an older Canon film
SLR, we got a whole lot of photos with only one half exposed.

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Please don't be offended if I state what may be obvious to you, but by any
chance could this have been pictures taken with a strobe and the shutter
speed set too high? As some may know (and some may not know), with a focal
plane shutter and strobe, the fastest shutter speed that can be used is one
where both shutter curtains are fully open. At faster shutter speeds, the
first curtain starts to open and the second curtain starts to close shortly
after-- at no time is the entire frame exposed.
On some of my older SLR's, the "X" sync speed (typically 1/50 second for a
horizontal shutter) has gotten faster or out of sync, and I have to drop
down to 1/30 second for flash.

is that MF or 35mm?
http://cameras.alfredklomp.com/horizon202/

More like 3-4 years, which is I believe what I said, but feel free to
change my words.

Again, you might wish to read my words with just a bit more care, the
camera has around 74,000 clicks on it, but the camera is 2.5 years
old. I take about 30,000 photos a year, does this seem like a lot to
you?

On a two week assinment a National Geographic photographer would go
through 200-300 rolls of film.

"your first 10,000 photographs are your worst" Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Are you through your worst yet, or still working on them? Actually
what Henri said was nonsense but I do love the quote.  Still over time
I keep learning, and shooting is, for me, a great way to lean.  I
believe that I am a much better photographer now then I was 37 years
ago, when I was in high school using a darkroom and doing a lot of B/W
prints.

For me a rather large number of my photographs are from canoe races, I
will shoot on the order of 1,000 photos at a race, if this seems like
a lot keep in mind there maybe 280 teams competing at a given race.
Our own club will race in maybe 30 races in a day.

Getting a good photo of 6 people all at the same time is not easy.
Here is a case where the timing is not at all good
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/103287787

This one is much better, not perfect, but much better
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/103287802

Keep in mind they are paddling around 65 to 70 strokes/minute bit more
then 1 a second, so an error of even 50ms can be the difference
between a good photo and a not so go one.  When I am shooting I am
trying to get one good photo per stroke, there might be 10 strokes
that give me a chance a this.

Then there are all the people shots during the races, that give it a
human feeling, people watching the race, the people getting out of the
boat after winning, or lossing, people just sitting around chatting,
all of these photos are needed to give a feel for the day.

Of the 1,000 photos maybe 20% will find there way into a slide show.
The first slide show I did I had close to 300 photos in it from a
number of races.  I played this during our clubs annual party and
though no one would watch the whole think, this was running on a
monitor that people could go up to and stand and watch.  Not only did
people watch the whole thing but they had to watch it all over again a
number of times, you might think my photos are crap, but opinions
vary.

I also put up a lot of photos on our clubs web site, people love
seeing photos of themselves.

On a vacation I will often shoot between 1,000 photos a day to 2,000;

I believe I am a fair bit older then you and so have a longer history
of photographing.  I can tell you then in going over my photo
collection from over the years there is not place where I has wished I
took fewer photo, but many places where I wish I had taken more.
Trying to have every photo a work of art is a great way to miss
getting the photos that will have the most value in years to come.

A new body every 3-4 years, big deal, either you are paying more then
that for film now, or in 20 years you will have wished you had.

Scott