We just replaced an upright freezer and tried to find one that was not frost-free. We couldn’t find one and had to go with a frost-free model. 
We have always preferred upright freezers for better access to it’s contents and smaller footprint. And we liked the non frost-free ones because you can get more stuff in them and they are more efficient to operate. Defrosting them once a year was no big deal for us.
I also have an upright, 40 year old non-frost free freezer and keeping fingers crossed that it will last longer! I was told several years ago when we were considering replacing it, for a more energy efficient model, that the frost free models cycle through periods of warm time to defrost. Which means that the items inside are also defrosting slightly as the freezer defrosts. Not sure if this is still the case, but we opted to stick with this one for that reason. I wonder why there are no more non-frost free ones available.