What you say is correct, but partial. If you cannot reproduce then you do not know whether it is due to the equipment/materiel varying or not and you have seve

What you say is correct, but partial. If you cannot reproduce then you do not know whether it is due to the equipment/materiel varying or not and you have severely reduced options for investigating that. If you look at the problems with even reproducing and testing the bugs that the specific situation under discussion exposes it is illustrative of the difficulties involved with working with a non-modifiable, unexaminable platform. In your example, the researchers would be forbidden by IP laws from examining and testing the surface of the beakers for contaminants and publishing a description which allowed other researchers to make similar modifications. It's the most sub-optimal situation in which to obtain something which starts to approximate reality. Not impossible, just difficult, and likely to lead to shenanigans.