No, you're not the only one. If it were busted, I could see it as a way of giving an old design new life, but this one appeared to be mostly operational. I have a 15" 1.25GHz iMac with a working arm in beautiful condition and it's going to stay stock. It suffices for viewing the security cameras, playing CDs and DVDs, the occasional Classic app and basic browsing tasks.

Yeah, I am pretty unhappy to see a perfectly functional classic machine like this not only gutted but having its original, functioning motherboard cut apart so he could use the power button from it. Now the old and increasingly-rare logic board cannot be used for a replacement for another system (I was reading the thread really hoping he gave away the logic board to someone who needed it).

These iMac G4s still run Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD (and of course OS X) very happily, and are very nice machines to run those OSes on (I run OpenBSD on one of mine, and OS X on another). Soon the "new" M1 hardware inside will be just as obsolete. Still, whatever, it's his computer to butcher I guess, and the overall stock appearance was retained well. I just don't personally like the destruction of somewhat rare, working hardware.

These aren't exactly rare. I can accept this sort of stuff when it's done well. They should pass that MB on as a working spare, though.

Yeah, unfortunately the logic board can't be reused because he cut it apart to reuse the power button from it.. ( https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-g4-to-m1-conversio... )

You might be... I loved the old machines but making the shell usable again is even cooler to me. I'd love to see them update the display to something more modern and then it would be perfect.

As long as there are enough of them preserved as-is, it doesn't bother me. Maybe the author has 2 (or more). In which case, right on.

You can buy them very cheaply off eBay.