Oh, that is separable to make manufacturing cheaper. They ship the same powersupply worldwide and just swap out the plug. It's not for your benifit. Although if you travel a lot it is handy.

That makes sense. But I've replaced more power cables than I can remember because the bit that connects to the laptop frayed. Had to replace the entire 80$ item every time. I'm really not that careless with them, they fray so easily.

Exactly. Apple doesn't really have much of an incentive to make the cables last longer, because you are GOING to buy a new one. People aren't inconvenienced enough by this to make Apple fix this issue.