If you haven't looked into Stoneguard, it is totally worth a try before replacement. That stuff is basically a plastic coating on your countertop. Etching, staining, everything comes to a halt. There is no time limitation of which I'm aware with Stoneguard such as you are stating with HydroShield. http://www.stoneguardusa.com/

If you're having trouble with quartzite now, marble is going to be worse, much worse.

If you want white, use Glacier White Corian. You will have no staining or etching problems at all!

Yeah, everyone wants gramma’s plastic sofa covering on their kitchen counters. You might as well get laminate at 1/5 the price of a premium marble and a premium coating. That ish combines to over $200 a square.

Stoneguard is very expensive. It is supposed to work, though. It isn't a liquid sealer. It is a solid film coating. Not many people use it due to the cost. Something consider here though since quartzite which is far more expensive is already in place.

If you don’t love how real stone behaves, and that means the minuses with the pluses, then don’t get real stone. Buy one of the man mades. They have drawbacks too. Nothing is the perfect combination of durable to use, low cost, and “natural”. Either accept natural, or accept man made.

IMO there are lots of white granites get them in a polished finish and relax. I ahve no idea why a plastic caoting would be my choice with a natural stone but I also do not understand leathered or honed in a kitchen. I love marble but I also think the patina it gets is awesome it shows people actually use the kitchen, they have used polished marble for counters in Europe for eons .

We dodged a bullet with Tahiti quartzite. I had selected slabs and they were transported to the fabricator right before a rainy weekend. They sat outside and absorbed a tremendous amount of water. The fabricator was afraid that they would never dry out and suggested that we choose another stone. I loved those slabs and they looked great with my cabinets, but I knew enough from reading on this forum that some quartzites could be extremely porous so it was back to the drawing board. I ended up with polished Tahitian Cream from Daltile Stone - a similar name but completely different quartzite. The Brazilian quarry tag was marked as Nuage Macchio Oro. They've been installed for two years now and there is not one etch, stain, or chip. Tahitian Cream can have a lot of variation and some that I saw were not very pretty. Luckily I found slabs that had quite a bit of white in them. I was more concerned with durability than anything else and this has been a winner.

Here's another thread with a Tahiti problem. karin_mt has a link to her article on porosity. Worth a read before you pick another stone.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5485633/quartzite-advice-the-counter-is-staining#n=166