I'm not trying to fight; just worked for 4.5 years as a county engineering inspector, inspecting roads and road construction. Our standard heavy use/major virgin road ran 12" Type-b stabilized subgrade (4" limerock or ball field clay mixed with native sand), 10" LBR100 limerock (a soft crushed rock with about 50% fines), 2" Sp-12.5, and 1" FC-9.5. We did do some other designs, including 2.5" Sp-19 and 1.5" FC-12.5; black base (2-2.5" Sp or B-12.5, as a base) with another 2" structural coarse and 1" friction.
For the driveways, minor side roads, etc we did 6" limerock on native sand, and the spec often read 1.25" of SP-9.5. As an alternative we allowed 3" of Super pave on compacted soil (sandy around here).
There are basically 3 things that damage a road or driveway.
1: Compaction; every thing we did had density tests; 96% minimum on subgrade (we actually enforced a 98% but legally spec read 96%), 98% on rock, and asphalt was cored for density to confirm readings between 93(min)-98%(max).
2: water; and I'll include freeze thaw for those guys up north (because it's the water in the base freezing that damages). You need to keep the water out of your base; cut swales, add cross draines, ect. Water will destroy a well built road, and will destroy a poorly built road very fast.
3: Time; time destroys everything sooner or later. Drive down a never built out subdivision from 10-15 years ago. The grass will be growing in the cracks; and there will be more cracks then in a well traveled roadway.
The problem people have will asphalt driveways is this... as an inspector I was asked many times "do you know anyone who does a good job at a fair price on asphalt driveways"; my answer was always "no!". People thought I was lying but I wasnt. Guys who know asphalt, and know how to really do it work for major paving outfits, and don't build driveways. There are unbelievably strick specs, and with both QC(quality control; checking quality/inspecting contractors work) and QA (quality assurance; double checking quality/inspecting the inspector); the roads last anywhere from 7 years to 38 years (the 38 year old road was Cr314A; 6" compacted ball field clay with 1.5" of S1 Marshall mix (1/2" rock; old retired spec) with a single chip seal coat added once.
Edit: the post is too long; but the ins and outs of road building; and explaining the "ways" of it, isn't a 10 word response.
Edit the Edit: I'm in North Central Fl; worked in Marion county, Flagler county, and pretty much all of District 2 (18 county's from Georgia line to Gainesville); I don't know where everyone else is from (doesn't show up on app; I guess if you log on with an actual computer it's suppose to show the profile...?)