My 2p, based on personal experience, is that the issue is over-heating. Let it get too hot and ....
From that basic point, pans vary. Better made pans are thicker, heavier, and better at heat spreading. So .... they might take a bit longer to get to operating temperature, but once you do, are easier to hold at that temperature.
Notching it up a step further, better quality pans have a coating with a higher maximum, like 260-280, rather than 230-240. And that extra 'headroom' gives a greater margin of tolerance between 'at temperature' and 'damaged pan'.
My first Tefal pan was a simple teflon coating and it lasted about 18 months. A subsequent pan lasted some years .... until Iet a chilli dry out too much and the pan overheated. It was like that for no more than a few minutes, 15 max and .... ruined pan.
Thing is, st the risk of teaching grandpa go suck eggs, quite a few things need to be pretty damn hot to fry. If you "fry" beef mince for a curry, or sear beef chunks for stew snd they go grey, not brown, then they are more boiling than frying. Fail to get that colour, the caramelisation of the surface, and you also fail to get the flavour which is the point (along with sealing moisture in) of "browning".
Add to that that the pan temp drops when you add food, especially in quantity, and the whole thing is a kind of russian roulette at getting the pan hot enough to do the job without being hot enough to damage the pan.
How many of us use a digital thermometer to monitor pan temps? I sure don't.
As for "stone"? Dunno, but I've often wondered.