And yes, $3000 for an AmigaOne X1000 workstation... that takes a special kind of will.. Especially seeing as the nostalgia aspect would be far better served by getting an original A1200 via eBay equipped with a PPC extension; that way you could run newly released multitasking OS with Firefox and co. on a essentially 23 year old computer!
Amigans are as strongly eccentric as ever. The culture is still hard at work, too, particularly on Aminet.net and at the AROS project. Hardware for Legacy systems is still being produced and can be purchased from sites like AmigaKit.us or Versalia.de. News, debate, and dreams of "the great Amiga revival" can be found on Amiga.org or EAB.Abime.Net.
More than a handful of diehards still hack their ~30 year old 68k AmigaOS 3.1 and 3.9 systems so as to be useful in 2014. You'll find said Amigans surfing the web with A2000s, composing music, adding solid-state drives to SCSI-II controllers, using decades old office productivity software, creating state-of-the-art-for-1985 television overlays for local television stations, etc. Amigans, as a group, seem to revile the principle of planned obsolescence. They treat their computers like classic trucks and take pride in keeping them "on the road".
Thus there's a constant debate in the Amiga community over the "soul" of Amiga and how said soul can be retained while bringing the Amiga into the future. Some, such as those mentioned above, attempt to wring every ounce of possibility out of the ancient hardware and software. Others, prefer to run newer Amiga OSes (MorphOS, AmigaOS 4.X, AROS) on new platforms. While I'm in the former camp, there are passionate people in both groups.
> proprietary hard-drive connectors and soldered ram.
But at least Apple's stuff uses modern parts and they design using recyclable materials and in ways that plan for the end of life of devices.
Most of the choices you mention are a result of market physical size demands and are made by every phone and tablet vendor, as well as nearly all ultrabook and other ultraportable devices like the MS Surface, etc.
An argument could be made for the pre-retina MacBook Pro's, which were RAM/disk expandable, and still had most of the benefits of current modules.
And yes, $3000 for an AmigaOne X1000 workstation... that takes a special kind of will.. Especially seeing as the nostalgia aspect would be far better served by getting an original A1200 via eBay equipped with a PPC extension; that way you could run newly released multitasking OS with Firefox and co. on a essentially 23 year old computer!