I'll agree that things are better engineered than they were previously. But this often comes at the cost that modern devices, in particular, are very difficult

I'll agree that things are better engineered than they were previously. But this often comes at the cost that modern devices, in particular, are very difficult to repair. Growing up, when there was a failure in a refrigerator, television, radio, PC XT clone, etc - it was 95% of the time a simple matter of identifying the component or logic element that has black soot on it, soldering in a new one, and continuing on. You could follow the circuit logic and reason about how the system operates, and then shoehorn in CMOS TTL gates to modify operation logic to your heart's content. With all logic moved to PLCs, MCUs, or black box SBCs, with components shrunk to 0402 SMD packaging - this is not longer a practical option afforded to consumers. We now throw the entire unit out and buy another. The 1970s-1990s were a magical time when teenagers could disassemble, and fix or tweak their family's vacuum cleaner or phonograph, setting the stage for an early interest and foundation in engineering. And now, that's gone.