A good conversation going on here that holds a lot of interest to me as I love tents and have a lot of tents. This thread and the information within is good regarding all gear, but most specific to tents.........as tents usually take the brunt of most the abuse in regards to gear once one gets to where one is going.
1st off, everyone here is correct in regards to UV being the usual culprit in regards what to worry about when it comes to tents...........unless, as happened to Gary a Grizzly bear tears your tent apart.........If you choose your tent site correctly, stake and tie it down properly and have the right tent for the right conditions.............your worst enemy is UV from the sun. What perplexes me is that so many people are willing to carry the extra weight of a foot print, which does help save the floor of the tent, but nobody talks of carrying a tent cover to protect your tent from the most damaging aspect of what can destroy a tent. Kinda odd! What if, and I know this is radical............what if instead of carrying a heavy foot print one makes a footprint of light weight Tyvek and one also makes a day cover for the tent out of light weight Tyvek?
But a close second to UV destroying the tents fly or a single wall tents body, is that people wear thru the floor of the tent. I have my original TNF Oval Intention that lasted almost 30 years before the floor become thread bear from use and the fly became thread bear from UV at the very same time. Fixed the floor and had a new fly made for it.
Another option is buying a tent with a super heavy floor and carrying a tarp like a Kelty Noah's Tarp, along with a tyvek footprint if desired. The Tarp only weighs two pounds and one can use it as a cover and or a tarp. One does not have to carry poles, to actually use it as a tarp, in areas where one can find materials to make poles to use it as a tarp.
For those who do not want to carry extra weight, of a tent cover, one can buy a product called Tent & Gear Solarproof by Nikwax. Sunscreen for you tent and gear. Now, I do not know how well it actually works but so far all of the Nikwax products I've used have performed as promised. So I think it's worth a try and I have a bottle here ready to apply to the next tent I use.
Interestingly enough I don't think that I've ever seen a tent that was pitched too taut. In fact the common mistake that I've seen is that tents are sometime pitched in a manner where the entire.....or part of the tent is pitched so that it is not taut enough. Then what I've seen occur, is the wind blows hard creating pockets like you would see on the sail of a sail boat, instead of shedding the wind..........and that is when the shrieking and screaming starts. Another problem I've seen is that tents that are not pitched taut, as they are designed to be, will start to collect rain and or snow in pockets on the loose material rather than shedding the rain and or snow as they are designed to do. I've seen people wake up in the morning with half their tent crushed around them. That would not have had that happen they set up there tent properly.
Lastly.........if you've done your homework and bought a good tent one can be rest assured of the fact that the tent materials that they use and the way those materials are sewed/bonded together, are done in such a way that you are not going to over stress those materials/seams unless your just flat over doing it go crazy when pitching your tent.
One other thing that I'm surprised about is that if you really love that tent you bought and are worried about parts, the fly, poles, etc...............then buy another tent either to have a spare so that when the tent your using breaks, you use it for a parts tent, or, just go to your gear room and get another tent that you know and love and use your old on as the parts tent. For instance Webby in his/her post stated that he/she just bought a North Face Westwind. As that is a really old tent by tent standards, you can get another for really cheap. In fact I just bought Westwind 2 of off Seattle Criagslist in used but mint condition for $75. Now I don't know if Webby's Westwind is the original two pole, brown label tent, or the newer 2 or 3, but if one looks hard enough then one will find what one wants, generally for really cheap. There are also apps that, if one has a smartphone they will tell you when something that your looking for is on Ebay or Craigslist.
Webby, If your still concerned about how to set up your tent properly
1) Have a person who knows tents come over to your house and set it up in the backyard or a park together.
2) Go to a good sporting goods store and have a person there help you set up your tent.
3) Make sure that you go camping, backpacking or what ever it is your going to do with a person is familiar with your activity and the gear that goes along with it.
Have fun with that Westwind. If it's the later 2 or 3 then it's apparently one hell of a tent.
Oh, and as Gary said, clean your tent after ever single use. This means when you get home. Set up your tent, take a shower...........then clean the entire tent with a very mild soap, Ivory or Woolite works for me, in warm water and a large soft, long bristle, brush. Rinse and make sure you get all the soap off. One would be so very surprised at how much body oil and other "stuff" gets on the inside and outside of a tent when you've been sleeping and living in it and not being able to take a shower for how every long your trip has been. I even do this after car camping where there are showers available. Make sure the tent is completely dry before storing and try to store in a large open container or at least loosely. If the tent is new it is especially important to store so that it can breath, mesh laundry bags are perfect and super cheap.