My Saitek Eclipse is 4 years old and the backlighting still works great and nothing has worn off. I originally wanted backlighting because I tend to look down at my hands alot when typing in game chat and I often am typing in a dim room. But Once I looked into Mechanicals , I went so far as to get BLANK keycaps so I would force myself to stop glancing and the board. There is something to be said for " less flair , more performance " .
My biggest issue is my use of only the first three fingers when typing and don't use the home row so I found myself having to look down for the first word in a sentence to get me started in the right spot. Now I'm trying to unlearn 15 years of bad habit , but my impatience often gets me typing in the old fashion again.