Agreed. This is not some evil conspiracy of hardware integrators (led by AAPL) to make non-modular devices. This is a design tradeoff in a leading edge machine [1] in which upgradeability was deemed to be less of a concern than making maximum use of space and weight.

[1] You can't get a Retina MBP for less than $2200, making it a premium product for the laptop category.

Nonsense. Go look at the iFixit write-ups of taking apart recent Apple devices, which helpfully show exactly how similar/different the variations are in many respects, highlight all kinds of proprietary components literally down to the level of unusual screws that have no apparent benefit whatsoever over using a standard/compatible component, and incidentally debunk your claim about "substantial thickness and weight savings" in the process.

it's actually just people preferring the non-modular systems for many reasons

I'm still waiting for anyone to cite any of those reasons. Other things being equal, why would someone prefer to buy a system that was going to cost a vast amount more to repair in the event of screen damage, or where proprietary connectors meant they couldn't swap out the SSD for a higher capacity unit even though the device itself is actually removable? And as noted above, for the most part other things are in fact equal, or so close as makes no difference.

then giving an example where you yourself went for junk instead of something that's supposedly like what you want

I'm still waiting for anyone to tell me what I should have bought instead. As I said, the printer I was talking about there was very much not an entry-level device, it was pitched as part of a range for professional use in an office, and with a price tag to match. Asking for such a printer to print a black-and-white document with only black toner is not some sort of absurd concession or flippant request. There would be no excuse for nerfing a $150 printer in that way, never mind a $1,500 one.

Also, it's not as if I somehow found the only printer or the only printer manufacturer around who has this problem. Again, as I already said, almost everyone seems to work this way these days. If you insist on maintaining that after extensive research I still wound up buying "junk" unnecessarily, you can easily win this debate. All you have to do is cite an alternative device I could have bought, with a reasonably similar spec and for a similar budget, that does not have such artificial limitations. But you can't, and instead of accepting that, you persist in implying that it's somehow my fault that a world class brand deliberately nerfed a device that costs $1,000+ in order to increase their revenue on consumables.

"Apple did not design and build a 1.5 mm thin LCD panel. They did, however, do something exceptional with the design of this display: rather than sandwich an LCD panel between a back case and a front glass, they used the aluminum case itself as the frame for the LCD panel and used the LCD as the front glass."

Remember your whole theory about iFixit debunking substantial weight savings? Turns out iFixit agrees with the OP and not with you.

Also, here's another direct quote for you:

"Incorporating a removable LCD into the MacBook Pro with Retina display would increase the thickness by less than a millimeter, while still preserving the awesome Retina resolution."

Source: http://ifixit.org/2787/mid-2012-macbook-pro-teardown/

Unless you're going to argue that less than a millimetre is enough to swing a purchase regardless of display resolution, in which case a lot of MBP Retina owners are presumably on their way back to the Apple Store to swap for a MacBook Air, it looks like iFixit does support my claim after all.

No, you wouldn't.

But even leaving aside the obvious hyperbole of your comment, we're drifting away from the topic at hand. My argument is simply that proprietary-everything, all-in-one designs are a significant loss for the consumer and a huge win for the manufacturer, because they very effectively kill both the upgrade and repair industries, making the default response to buy more new equipment instead.

Given the disproportionately high rate of damage to mobile devices, and the relatively low starting specs, and the fact that most laptops (including Apple ones) have not had such severely restricted maintainability until very recently, this all seems like a huge step in the wrong direction, from the customer's point of view.

If it were only the screen on the Retina MBP, I could just about believe the theory that it was done to keep the size down, but it's obviously not only that screen. If you look at the direction of basically all Apple equipment in recent years, not just phones or even laptops, everything has been moving towards using unusual/proprietary connections and fixed-at-birth specifications for a while, and there are far too many cases where there was no apparent benefit of any kind for me to accept that it's all being done because it's what the customer wants. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me dozens of times over a period of years, find me a good shrink.

Who's giving them a choice, other than not buying anything at all?

I think people value the benefits of the non-modular design more than you think.

I think people value other things that may or may not have anything to do with the lack of modularity, and I think they buy devices that have those benefits. Often, they probably don't even realise the lack of modularity or its implications at the time of making a purchasing decision, but even if they did, they might still value the other benefits over any downside due to lack of modularity.

We can't really conclude much from the current trends unless manufacturers also offer devices that have the benefits of modularity as well, potentially at a greater cost literally or in terms of things like bigger size or heavier weight.

As for the rest, can you give me a specific example of a non-modular system that Apple has made that didn't result in savings in cost, space, or weight? Because every example I can think of saves at least one of those, so either you're thinking of something I'm not, or we disagree on what the savings are. Either way, I can't address it until I know exactly what you're referring to.

Personally, I don't buy the idea that a customer goes into a store and measures whether an iPad or a Galaxy Tab is a few tenths of a millimetre thicker before making their purchasing decision. On the other hand, I do buy the idea that a lot of people are shocked and then angry after their Apple gear gets damaged and they learn how much it's going to cost to repair and how long it's going to take, not least because I personally know several people who have been stung in that way. Of course, by the time they discovered that downside to the all-in-one designs, Apple already had their money.

In my experience, people are mostly surprised as Apple's good service when they need a repair. It's not like other manufacturers provide cheap repairs, either.