Well, for other iPods it doesn't matter that much, since you can control them without a remote. But for the shuffle, it's bad...
About the original ones going bad: I had three, I guess, that I used for a long time - and they always worked. The original ones (that came with the iPod 2G 10 GB for me), the newer ones (came with my iPod 4G 40 GB), and the same ones that came with my iPod 5.5G 80 GB. Those really just worked. Fine.
Then I got an iPod touch 1G 16 GB and those just broke after a month. I don't abuse my earphones. Truly don't. But the left plug just stopped giving sound. And then the iPhone headphones. The 1G's earphones broke after two months. Suddenly I had to wiggle the connector in order to make them work, whenever they disconnected, my iPhone would sound stuff out loud, of course. The same thing happened with my new iPhone 3G's earphones. After three DAYS.
Working at an Apple Authorised Reseller, I see about one customer with broken Apple earphones for every five iPods/iPhones we sell. That's 20%. Not counting those who never bring the broken ones back and just buy new ones (by Apple or 3rd party). I find Apple's claims of using "superior" earphones quite dangerously close to a lie.