We are a chartercompany, and used two Evinrude 250 last year. A lot of things broke, gear, main braket holding engine, tube in front of engine, enginemount etc etc. The main problem was that we had to by totally 400l of oil and carry all this. Second big problem, the sparks are expensive and we had to change every 60 hours (12 sparks). We do have one 225 Yamaha 4 stroke, no problems, not even changed the sparks. The Rudes did 280 hours and the Yam did more than 500 hours.
This year we have bougth two 250hp Suzuki because the quality is the same as the Yamies and it has a better dealership where we live.
Plugs are expensive , that is if you buy the jets marvient stuff 19.60 euro each, or buy online www.sparkplugs.com 5 dollars each,
Same with anodes approx 32 euro each, or buy from zincsmart.com 35 euro a set of 3.
Are you looking Ficht or etec, I couldnt speak highly enough about Evinrude, we had pair of 75hp 1020 hours, one regulator prob
AAArrgghh!! 
