I think the individual wheel is a product of a market where the consumer consider the walk behind mower as a throw away piece of equipment. It seems many Americans are interested only in the initial cost and not the long life of equipment. It doesn't help that our factories are also pushing the cheaper designs just to just making new equipment.
Now some customer do try to keep their equipment a long time. I just finished welding a Honda deck body back together where both sides were fractured to the top area. Not my best work around the discharge area as a lot of it was gone but it had to be repaired as if you pressed down on the engine the bar blade would move down to the ground.
