I wish more places just dyed the fabric. I have some shirts that are 10+ years old and look exactly like the day I bought them and they all are graphic tees with the image dyed into the shirt itself. The ones I have with a plastic-y decoration on the front, even if I take all the special precautions that other posters mention in the thread, will inevitably crack and wear out over time.

My problem is I want to get a custom design printed, and a lot of places will advertise that they screen print, but if you go to their website and create a custom design you find that they either won't do less than X number of shirts as a minimum order, or they will just vinyl print it anyway and send you that for $35 and it will fall apart almost instantly.