I had many of the same concerns when I first decided to get back into the Weather Station hobby; I had a davis unit 20 years ago, and remember it lasted 15 years in the hellacious Chicago environment, but I too thought I wanted a more modern, colorful display, so first I bought an Accurite Atlas, that had a great display, but many other issues, so that was returned, then , I moved to a WS2000; worked great, wonderful display, but, I was concerned that a couple of years in the Arizona desert would end up destroying the outdoor array; it seemed nice while new, but I didnt feel that sitting for months in 110-150 sunshine/heat/dusty conditions, it would be able to survive, so I gave that away, and bit the bullet and got another Davis VP2..
2 months in, not a single issue, accurate as can be, no issues, no worries, and, its solid as my first one was..
Sure, I would like a glitzy color display, but, there are so many windows/Android/other types of apps/programs that allow you to have a beautiful color "display" of all your data, and, as someone else said, I have just set the console light to be on all the time, and adjusted the inside temps accordingly to make up for the heat generated by the lamp on 24-7.
It gets down to what is most important to each of us, rock solid, accurate data, and hardware that should last a very long time, or a fancy color console, that our children and wives can glance at and get the weather from..
Only the person who buys it can make that decision, but understand you get what you pay for, in life and in weather stations....There is a reason why Davis stuff costs more than the Chinese imports..