If I’m just going to replace them when the soles wear out, I lean toward buying cheap boots. You can get a decent “brand x” pair at the big box stores for about $40-50, which isn’t much different than the cost of the re-sole job Zach was talking about. In the case of the boots I’m talking about, a sole fell off, but it was getting awfully thin anyway, so even if it had stayed on I’d be looking at a replacement soon.
If I were to spend the $100+ for the Simms boots, re-soling looks like a much more attractive option. I can’t imagine that felt wears down any slower on the more expensive boots.
bd