Honestly, this is my experience with my stainless steel pans too.

I bought a 5 piece set of these at Costco a few weeks ago and they are amazing.

What's amazing is the misinformation spread by marketing departments over the years making people think they need these elaborate pans. I have a decent set of cookware I've acquired over the years but ultimately I use my twelve year old 10" carbon steel pan 99% of the time (I cook almost every meal every day so I use it a lot). It's unfortunate that basic home cooking skills aren't something that's handed down over the generations. I mean, feeding yourself should be pretty high on the list of things to learn before you leave home.

What they never tell you in cookbooks is how to manage heat and mentally calculate how much and for how long to apply to an ingredient. It's difficult to put into print but, suffice to say, once you "learn this one simple trick", cooking with any cookware is trivial.

These last maybe a year even if you use gentle low heat. But that depends how often you cook. I only use my nonstick for pancakes (very rarely) but everything else is stainless steel, just heat it up then add oil after, food goes on when the oil is shimmering and flows easily (not viscous)