There are vast quality differences in D-Sub connectors. Industrial-spec ones are quite durable, although of course they still have the robustness issue of relatively thin pins that can be bent or broken easily by whacking the connector on the edge of a table or something like that. That doesn't tend to happen with e.g. XLR, Speakon, Hartings or Multipin connectors. However, the pin density of these is also quite a bit lower...
In my experience the higher-spec DSubs are actually more prone to broken pins. The connector is actually meant as cable harness connector for aerospace-ish applications, the whole concept of dsub shells and using it for external cables is largely an IT industry invention that happened few decades after introduction of the connector itself. Micro ribbon (ie. “Centronics”, “Telco connector” and what not) is actually meant for repeated imprecise insertions and has comparable pin density and electrical specification, but thickness of its shell is at the edge of what is practical for various EuroCard-derived backplane systems (which includes PC cases) and thus DSub won.
