What I understand from your question is.... you're concerned about the durability of a DVR box.
As per my experience, I would say... there is no difference between the life span of a DVR and normal STB. As DVR contains a Hard Disk, so the recording feature may get disrupted when the Hard Disk gets corrupted. But still you can use your DVR STB as a normal STB for viewing programs. And I think HDD life span is not so short either, isn't it !!
Again, there is no need to be afraid at all ! I have been using an HD-DVR box for almost 1.5 years now and it still works like a charm. I even made some efforts to upgrade the internal 320 GB HardDisk to a 2 TB HDD, and it hasn't given any sort of problem in last 5 months since I upgraded the HDD.
So, if you're interested in a buying a Recorder STB, go for it. It really makes life easy. You don't have to live your life on a program's schedule. Just watch any program as per your own convenience !!
