I gotta log in here more often...always something new.
I'm an audiologist, and I think I can offer some explanation as to why people with severe to profound hearing loss are having difficulty with digitals. At moderate outputs, the sound quality differences of analog and digital hearing aids are almost indistinguishable to human ears. At high output, however, digitals distort less than analogs. This is part of the reason your audiologists keep trying to foist digital technology on you. It really may be clearer sound.
So if there's less distortion in digitals, why is it hard for long-time analog users to switch? When you don't get a lot of signal, your brain does a phenomenal job of using what it gets. That includes distortion. And with a profound loss, without the hearing aid you're not going to hear any normal sounds. So what your brain registers as normal is the distorted analog sound. Switch that to clearer sound, and you lose some signal. Now, a lot of analog users can make that switch...but a lot cannot.
Increasingly the analogs are being discontinued. Oticon has a few, I think; so does Phonak, Unitron (maybe?), and a few others. Siemens does not. The day will most likely come when analogs are no longer available. Where will that leave us in terms of dedicated analog users? Digital technology is very, very flexible. Who knows? Maybe we'll get digitals that can be programmed to sound like analogs.
Are digital hearing aids higher maintenance? I've yet to see a study...and I can't imagine the hearing aid industry running a study that shows their newest, highest tech stuff is also prone to breakdown. Anecdotally, I feel like newer hearing aids, both analog and digital, are not as sturdy as their predecessors. We've seen increased miniaturization, and I'm sure that's part of it, but still, you have to wonder. Rest assured, it annoys your audiologist...nearly as much as it annoys you.
Unless, of course, your audiologist is a schmuck.