Sounds like a battery maintenance issue. Those 'old' styple jumperpacks use AGM batteries and just like any kind of lead battery needs to kept charged or else the plates have sulfation and not work anymore. Best way is basically have them trickle charge/battery maintainer connected to them all the time. Lead acid batteries deteriate with time, so you will need to replace the battery inside the jumperpack every few years. You don't have to replace the entire thing.
These days lithium jumperpacks are on the market, that won’t need to be charged all the time (and shouldn’t!). Generally without any compressors or those kind of features. Lithium batteries will degrade with time too, but are far more user friendly maintenance wise. You do see a lot of (too) cheap Chinese ones...
Just keep in mind battery, just like the battery in your car will not last forever. When you buy them, it will be just for a few years.
I agree with the latter part of your post. The battery will eventually degrade no matter what, regardless of how well you maintain it. That is my point. My power stations were for rare emergencies. I took care of my batteries better than an average consumer would. Nevertheless, the battery eventually degraded because that is what any battery does. For people like me who only will use the power station for a rare emergency, a power station is basically a bad investment.
I have had a similar experiences with those backup battery power supplies that you use for computer equipment. I had two of those. The battery eventually degrades. The average consumer will not know the battery is toast until there is a power outage. Anyway, my power outages were so rare that it only came in handy once. Even then, having my computer equipment running was not necessary.
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