Using a high quality hinge, keeping the doors adjusted and just common sense mantainence should keep your cabinet doors and drawers operating smoothly for years. The type of hinge (i.e. straight, butt, offset, hidden or European hinges) should not matter that much.

However, using inexpensive (cheap) hinges of any kind will definately create problems after time. Poor installation (stripping screws, moving screw holes slightly, bending the hinges) will also cause problems.

Adjusting hinges is not a particularly hard or taxing job. Like everything, if someone knows what they are doing, they make it look easy. There are lots of tips and techniques for each particular condition. Knowing those, and when to use them, is the hard part. If you, the homeowner, are not adept enough to do the job correctly, hiring a cabinet maker to “tune up” and install new hinges where needed is definately worth the minimal cost. For a small investment in maintainence, your large investment in cabinetry will be easily extended.