The restaurant biz isn't really a glamorous one, and every kitchen holds a pretty standard attitude of "Make it work with what ya got". Truth be told, your average kitchen saute' pan would be destroyed by the heat of a restaurant stove, oven, or salamander, not to mention grease damage and constant scrubbing. Like robo said, those pans heat very fast, which is important when you need very hot pans very quickly, and they can also take a beating.
I honestly prefer pro kitchen equipment to home use stuff. I find it to be infinitely more durable, and to be quite blunt, I think alot of home cooks buy into the idea that buying expensive "high-quality" cookware can turn them into a higher quality home cook, which is a pretty ridiculous notion. In some circumstances I think the very expensive items might help a novice to be generally more idiot-proof in his own kitchen, but when it comes down to it, there's nothing you can make in a $100 All-Clad something or other that you can't make in the $10 restaurant equivalent, and at least you can treat the $10 pan like its worth $10, and it can take it. It seems like all that nice expensive stuff needs to be babied in order to stay in working order.