This is actually much better than their previous designs which had 'replaceable parts' that by design would generally destroy the motherboard when replaced by technically-inclined users or non-Apple repair people. Now there isn't an illusion of repairability bundled with a false sense of defeat upon encountering failure.

I'm not sure it's better that GP wouldn't have been able to do what he did successfully, because other people might have failed thinking they could succeed.

Just because some people might fail at certain tasks thinking they could perform aftermarket changes (so long my Palm IIIx and iPhone 3G) doesn't mean all people will fail at these things (wayhey hello new screen on my Thinkpad and significantly improved wifi on my XPS).

Meanwhile my MacBook Air now gathers dust and I was forced to fork out significantly more money for a MacBook Pro just to double the RAM from 4GB to 8GB. There's only one winner there (well, arguably two, as I still got a new laptop out of it...)

It's tragic to see RAM moving in the opposite direction of other positive technologies like USB. Going from being difficult to reuse between devices to fixed and impossible to reuse, making entire devices disposable.

Just part out your MacBook Air. I just parted out a mid-2011 and got about US$600 for it, excluding the useless battery and frayed power cord.

Being forced to sell a product in perfectly good computer just because the manufacturer goes to extreme lengths to stop you from even performing the most trivial upgrade ever is not a solution. In fact, that caters to a single party's interests, which is the manufacturer itself. You're being forced by the manufacturer to waste a bigger chunk of your hard-earned money by giving it away to him.