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Thinking it through, I have a trivial fix for this. It's obvious, but IM me if you're interested.
Thanks for following #A Cheap And Dangerous Garden Light Boost Converter !
I was just rummaging around on DigiKey for neon lamps, and was surprised that the one I chose had a lifetime of 1500 hours. Then I looked at another one and it had a lifetime of 20,000 hours.
Both of these are rather low - it's about 2.2 years of continuous use. This may explain why your hot test shortened the life of the bulb.
But more importantly, watch out for the short lifetime bulbs - this may make standard bulbs unsuitable for listening for girder failure. It might be OK for nuclear reactors when you can tolerate changing the bulb every year as part of maintenance.
It might also be possible to adjust the design for longer life, such as embedding the device in plastic.