Thanks for the details on mating cycles – although I've never had a TypeA connector "fail" from mating cycles (and have some in daily use for decades). I've only used USB-C for about a year, but have already broken one (which completely disables the plug, unlike the sculptable TypeA).

>It is true however that you must handle Type C connectors much more delicately than Type A, otherwise you can break them before they are worn out by mating cycles.

I would suspect that on a large enough datasample, TypeA connectors will out-survive TypeC (durability-wise), for your above reasoning alone. Have you ever worked hardware techsupport in an academic environment (or have children, or wives, or husbands)?

----

As an electrician with tons of realworld experience resolving burned-up installations, I also doubt the 240W-rating™ across top-end USB-C connectors is safe (I know theoretically it is... just like all those burnt-up outlets I've replaced in the real world). If I breath on my main display's USB-C connector (<1 year old!), it often re-sync's (a few seconds of annoyance).

Obviously USB-A could never approach these power ratings, but I suspect USB-C cannot either (in realworld == electric fires). I love & use PoE (via Cat5e/6): it has much lesser-rated ampacity (despite higher cross-sectional area of wire).