Stucco.....
Wow, sorry to hear that. I also thought that the 'quite ones' were supposed to be good (?) I planned on using them in my next set up.....'hmmmm ?'
I remeber a while back, you mentioned you had a pump that ran for several years. Was it a 'little giant' or a danner...I don't remeber ?

I have a few 'fountain pumps' and a 'waterfall pump'...the water fall seems to plug less.
I do run redundant pumps...just in case.

I helped a church pipe in an external pump to their fish tank. I ran the discharge to a 'spray bar' in the tank.....I just ran the line up and over the side of the tank.

On the suction side.....I added a union just before the line went into the sump. That way they can easily pull out the strainer to clean it. The strainer also had a built in foot valve/check valve.
Since they would need to re-prime this part of the line, I add a tee (at the highest point) between the union and the motor. On the branch of the tee, I added a male adapter with a threaded plug.