> A test failure will probably bring up an engineer that will track down the issue, and a re-test will inevitably occur. The faulty machine will eventually (hopefully) get labeled flaky and will get repaired.
Depending on how valuable the engineers' time is. I have seen this played out like this: hardware gets blamed last after hours and days of testing have been wasted. So tests are run and re-run, blame goes all around until finally after hours and hours of testing it is determined that maybe it is hardware after all.
In the end an engineers' time is worth a lot more than savings obtained by running flaky but cheaper hardware.
Depending on how valuable the engineers' time is. I have seen this played out like this: hardware gets blamed last after hours and days of testing have been wasted. So tests are run and re-run, blame goes all around until finally after hours and hours of testing it is determined that maybe it is hardware after all.
In the end an engineers' time is worth a lot more than savings obtained by running flaky but cheaper hardware.