Do we undermine the valuable?

This is something of a random musing on value, but it seems to me that part of what it means to follow the "American Way" (culturally speaking) is to take what is valuable and eventually undermine it - make it significantly less valuable (I'm not actually thinking about our financial crisis and the strength of the dollar). It seems to me that there is a distinctly American trait that does this. It, likewise, strikes me that American evangelical Christianity does this as well. It is something we have adopted from our culture.

In light of this, there is a movement to create new value. Whether it is new technology, new programs, or just new packaging, there is an incredible effort to create something valuable to fill the gap for what used to be valuable and is now not so much. A good example might be cell phones (or technology in general). Technology, it seems, has build into our minds a way of consummerism where what we put our value in is not lasting - it is with us a short while and then fades into non-value. 

I live near Denver and we just had the largest Ikea in the world open here. There were 2000 people outside waiting to get in on opening day, many of whom slept in tents outside. It seems to me that much of what Ikea does is apply the "insights" of technology to furniture. Just as we used to fix our technological gadgets, but now just throw then away, so too with our furniture. 

Do you see this play out in the life of the church? Do you see this movement from value to unvaluable take place? It is unsustainable, it seems to me, but I still see churches seeking for whatever is newest, because what they bought into last year just doesn't cut it anymore.