What you say about tires aging and being unreliable after years of storage is very true.
I had a 1994 S-10 Blazer that I had bought new, the original tires lasted about 85,000 miles. The spare had been used once for a few days when one tire blew out. At that point I replaced the 4 tires and put the original spare back inside. The tire was inside the rear of the vehicle with a cover on it.
When the car was about 7 years old, I had another tire go down on the road and put the spare on again. I continued my trip and replaced the spare when I reached my destination. I still had to return about 1000 miles to get home.
On the way home, late at night after driving 12 hours, I heard a horrible explosive noise and I thought the vehicle had finally expired, the sound was really loud and bad. Then all was quiet again and since I was about 20 miles from home at that point, I continued along, hoping I would make it. When I got off the freeway I noticed a sound like a low or flat tire, still I continued, slowly now, to reach the last few miles home. When I pulled into the garage I fully expected to find a flat or nearly flat tire. I was amazed to see the tire still was fully inflated. I looked closer to find that the entire tread had come off, that was what all the noise had been as the tire flapped around in the wheel well and finally came off.
The tire was worn almost through the metal belts after that last 20 or so miles. In the morning I changed the tire and had it replaced. I kept that tire in my garage as a reminder of how lucky I was and to remind me to check pressures and that tires rot when left unused.