Not necessarily. I also have an East German blender, that's like 40 years old, and looks like hell, but works perfectly. I bought another one, since the old one was kinda hard to look at. It was a highly recommended somewhat upmarket type from a supposedly reputable brand.

It broke within 2 years..

I took it apart and discovered it was full of plastic gears on load bearing components which predictably got annihilated by wear and tear. The old one had metal ones.

I echo the article's sentiment that while cheap usually means bad, expensive stuff is usually indistinguishable in quality from mass-market stuff nowadays.