Ok, sure -- I was lazy. It's sometimes possible, but it doesn't make economic sense. Paying for people and equipment to can safely swap a motherboard and reas

Ok, sure -- I was lazy. It's sometimes possible, but it doesn't make economic sense. Paying for people and equipment to can safely swap a motherboard and reassemble the laptop is not cheap, but it's not expensive. Paying people who can diagnose a fault in a modern motherboard, do the board-level repair, test it, and turn it around to the customer doesn't make sense. Do a quick board swap and be done with it. Maybe forward the faulty board to some central facility for refurb or at least analysis to find out what's breaking in the field. This isn't unique to Apple -- very little consumer electronics is repaired because it isn't worth the cost. Now Apple makes the choice to solder everything on the motherboard (both for size & weight, and likely reliability reasons too). That means even peripheral failures junk the whole motherboard. But that's a trade-off they, and their customers, make.