Electrical Panel / Circuit Breaker Cleaning as Part of Regular Maintenance?

Hi,

We recently had an electrician out to repair a problem we had on a circuit, which turned out to be a loose neutral at one of the wall sockets. We had been occasionally, briefly losing power on that circuit, but it never tripped the breaker. A google search seems to show this is normal for a loose neutral, but the electrician implied to us that the breaker didn’t trip because he said it was very dirty and could have gotten stuck. We think this is kind of odd, because we had solar installed in 2025, so we’d just had all the electrical moved to a subpanel and presumably if our breakers were that dirty to prevent correct operation, the installer would have mentioned it? But since the solar install, our neighbors did cut and install concrete pavers right next to the alley where our panel is, and we also live in a very windy and dusty area - my car does get ridiculously filthy in only 2 weeks depending on time of year. And there is dust inside the panel, but we don’t know how much is normal or not, and whether it’s just surface dust versus really being “inside the breakers”

The electrician repair told us we should be paying for a cleaning and lubrication every 5 to 10 years. (They charge $900 for this, which seems a little steep to us even being in VHCOL area). I don’t want to devalue anyone’s expertise and time, but it seems like a maintenance cleaning shouldn’t be something like a third of the cost of installing a brand new thing. He also told us that we should seriously consider having the rest of our wall outlets replaced because they are too old. (Some of them probably are from the 70s when the house was built) He implied that with the older outlets and the dirty breakers that were were at risk of a fire starting.

So we wanted your guys thoughts on this .. does it seem like he’s upselling us, and how important is it to get an outdoor panel regularly cleaned? And thoughts on the wall outlets? If one neutral already came loose, do we need to have all the other outlets inspected and if so, how urgently?