Stylus can be bonded or nude, all nude styli are high quality and very well polished (imo), a cartridge with advanced profile is not cheap by default, especially if the stylus mounted on advanced cantilever. If you meant current retail price (when you sayin' "low-medium price cartridges") then it's modern cartridges and nearly all those styli came from very few companies (Namiki, Ogura ... in Japan).
All low priced modern cartridges does not have advanced diamonds, not even nude diamonds when it comes to various modern MM, but i don't know what is "low price" for you, because when we're talking about LOMC the price range is so wide (up to the sky).
The stylus life span depends on profile type, and those with a life span up to 2000hrs are Micro Ridge, F.Gyger, VdH, Replicant 100 etc
Shibata or Line Contact does not live that long, it is true.
But Elliptical does not live even 600 hrs
and conical life span is shorter than elliptical
No matter what, but it's more reasonable to look for a cartridges with Shibata at least (or better profiles) for practical reason. Especially LOMC cartridges.
