I have some really old card sleeves. They are Ultra PRO, black sleeves from at least 15 years ago. I ended up buying 600+ matching sleeves for all of my decks back in the day and they've been with me ever since.
Maybe the old Ultra PRO sleeves were made better than they are today, but all the complaints I hear about this brand of sleeves splitting are unfounded in my experience. I've had the odd sleeve split over the years, but not more than once in a while and usually because I did something stupid. Maybe five splits. Not bad for 15 years. I pile shuffle once in a while between games, but I mostly rifle shuffle the cards together against the long edges. I recently switched to hand-over-hand shuffling for Commander since the deck is so much larger. As long as you avoid the open top edge, it's all good.
Did I mention that I'm a recent double-sleeve convert? Those perfect fit sleeves do indeed fit perfectly inside the outer sleeve and protect the top edge of the card. Even though I'm careful with my cards, my oldest cards do have slightly more wear along the top edge. The double-sleeve idea takes care of that problem. Many cards go up in value. I encourage you to play with the cards (I do!), but protect them. It's worth it.
My sleeves are so old that the new Ultra PRO black sleeves are slightly longer than they are and I can't mix them together. Of course, the old sleeves are worn in so badly that I couldn't mix them together even if I wanted to. Officially, my sleeves would be counted as "marked" in a tournament, but I play mostly around the kitchen table. The wear pattern is fairly even between the sleeves, so I can't really tell which card is which anyway. But hey, I wouldn't expect a stranger to trust me on that.
Anyway, you know how your sleeves get grime on them after a few games? I'm pretty careful with my cards, but the grime happens to me too. For years, I would simply slide one edge of a sleeve against the face / back of the other sleeve to clear off the crud. Satisfying and gross at the same time. But, I figured I'd sit down one afternoon and actually clean (with water!) the sleeves on my favorite Commander deck.
Here's the thing: it took a long time. North of an hour. Between desleeving my cards, cleaning each sleeve, making sure it was dry, and resleeving the deck, I think I made pretty good time. Economically, it's not worth it. But, it was a sunny afternoon and I had the music cranked up. There was something therapeutic about cleaning the sleeves. I'm not saying that I'd never do it again, but maybe I'd wait another 15 years.
The process was as simple as it sounds. Once I got all of my cards out of the sleeves, I took a damp towel and wiped the face and back of each sleeve. After wiping the sleeve, I set it aside to dry. I didn't use soap because I didn't want to deal with rinsing the sleeves. A dry soap film on each sleeve is asking for trouble. The trick is to wipe away from the center so the sleeve doesn't bend and so that you avoid getting water into the open top edge. If you get water inside the actual sleeve, you're going to be waiting forever for it to dry. Don't go there.
The towel was filthy by the time I finished, so it looked like it really worked. The sleeves felt "smooth" again and shuffled really well after they were cleaned, too. That was cool. But, like I said before, it's probably worth getting new sleeves once in a while and keeping the old ones to sleeve up your collection or trades.
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