Better items have more durability, but the idea will remain the same. There are plenty of cool items dropping and you can craft new ones yourself too. Usually if the items last for too long, most of the new finds are rendered useless as soon as you find something very good. With this mechanic in place, the second best item is also a very valuable find.
This is pretty unique, but I've put a lot of thought and testing into this, there are many supporting mechanics like crafting or autoequipping to combat some of the pitfalls of the system. If it will turn out that this is an issue, there are some solutions that could be implemented, for example a blacksmith class with unique ability of repairing items or some very rare items that would restore limited number of your best finds.