I had a couple of repairs for friends one a flash gun , other an amplifier, both were 4 ish years old , and caps had blown ,(rubycon) a common fault, last repair I had to use "Forever " 2200uF 16v , because of its size , I am wondering what caps to avoid , is price a good guide ?

 

I did some researching myself when I had to replace caps in some audio amplifiers I was repairing. I didn't find any real statistics, but consensus seemed to be that Rubycon and Panasonic were in the list of "good" brands. Also check the data sheets, they typically show an expected number of hours service life at some specific temperature.

Is it possible those parts were left over stock from the great capacitor plague of the early 2000's?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague