Perhaps it would help to know that I upgraded the RAM and hard drive on my 2005 Santa Rosa MBP. Really easy due to standard DDR2 SODIMMs and SATA connectors.
Did the same to my 2009 unibody, put a 500GB hybrid solid state hard drive in it and bumped the RAM first to 6GB and then to 8GB.
Not only did I bump the RAM in my 2012 unibody to 16GB—which wasn't even a build option when initially released—but replaced the DVD drive with a second 2.5" drive, ran two SSDs in RAID-0, and got 1GB/sec r/w transfer rates, which for that vintage was unheard of, especially since it started with a 240GB HDD. That one lasted me quite a while where the only real drawback from a new one was the screen resolution. I was able to upgrade the screen to a slightly higher res when I broke the screen, so at least a minor improvement there.
Then the Retinas started. Stuck on 16GB RAM on my 2015 MBP, but I loved the new screen, and I eventually replaced the stock 512GB SSD with a 1TB NVMe stick, then a 2TB NVMe stick. This is still my personal laptop, and I'm eyeing a 4TB upgrade for it now, 8 years after initial release.
Got a 2022 M1 Max for work, and it was great, but it did have a boot hiccup six months back. (SSD issues.) Got it "repaired" (really just a replacement since the whole mainboard was useless) and luckily I made regular backups, but became wary once I learned this wasn't an isolated issue and why the problem probably popped up in the first place.
Most of those laptops still work! The parts that died first almost without exception were the storage devices. The CPUs generally kept plugging along well after their usefulness had expired. Screens still light up. RAM still plugging away. The drives have clearly been the weakest link, but when storage is replaceable, we can keep the rest of the laptop out of the trash for many more years. (Assuming you keep them plugged in due to the battery being shot, but even batteries are replaceable or the laptop is usable as a desktop alternative for a loved one.)
Therefore now I'm far more reluctant to purchase a new Mac for personal use precisely because of the design issues found in recent Macs.
Sufficiently original and non-rehashed?
