burning Halogen bulbs

[robobass]

My wife has a fancy halogen lamp in her office. The original dimmer burned out. Replacement dimmers were unsuitable because of noise, and since she always ran the lamp at full, I wired a simple on/off switch. The problem is that now the $14 bulbs (Euro PSD 05/07) last only a few months. I figured that the switch was causing the problem, and that the bulb wasn't built to deal with instantaneous full-on voltage. A friend in the lighting industry told me this was nonsense and that premature burnout must be coming from excessive handling and vibration of the lamp. Anyone know if this is true? If my intuition is correct, could I modify the switch (with a capacitor, perhaps) to decrease the shock to the bulb?