pump repairing

I have 1995 trans am(standard shift). I bought it in 1994 and I have over 229,000 miles on it. In the years I have had the car, the water pump has been replaced 3 times. Is that a little excessive? A friend told me that the design for the water pump on this car is not very good, but I still think that a water pump should not be changed out that many times in 13 years. I know a couple of pumps were rebuilt, so maybe the pump did not have much life left. I am supposedly getting a new water pump on this repair. So hopefully this will last a while.