No experience here, but I'm expecting some cultural tipping point eventually when 3D printers suddenly become in the public consciousness as a household appliance. Probably will be slightly limited to competent PC users though for a good while yet.
As for the self-repair idea - is good if you can get a suitable digital model of the part, otherwise you're looking at modeling it yourself, which depending on your abilities could be hit or miss. There is software that can make a mesh from several photos of objects at different angles, they generally make messy meshes but can be used as a template layer for your own mesh on top. Getting the scale right would be key in that case.