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I wouldn't put all "cheap" small gas engines in the same reliability category. The cheapest of the cheap have aluminum bores and plain crank bushings; as noted, they are good for mowers and such that see minimal hours of use accumulation over time before they wear out and become basically not worth rebuilding. But if a small cheap gas engine has a cast iron bore and ball bearings on one or both ends of the crank, I don't know why it wouldn't be able to live as long as, say, a similar motorcycle engine... or maybe even longer, given the lower rpm operating range. Plus as of recently, we have many OHV choices whereas back in the day small engines were almost all flatheads, which are much less fuel efficient.
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