"The Nintendo Switch has a USB-C port which means you should be able to use any USB-C to HDMI cable or dock to charge it or connect it to a TV, right? Nope. You can only use the official expensive dock or USB-C cables."

AIUI, the way this all shook out (that's an early story) is that you can stick any USB-C charger you want into the Switch directly, and it'll work fine without bricking anything. However, when a dock gets involved, it gets more complicated. The easiest and safest way to remember the matrix of safe vs. unsafe is "use the official dock directly and don't do anything else". Technically there are other safe things in the matrix, such as using the USB cable with a proper resistor in it, but it's all too easy to get any other such policy wrong, and not usually worth it.

Not that you're wrong to complain about the bricking issue. It's broken. It's just not quite as totally broken as some of the early articles thought. (For obvious reasons, nobody was too interested in conducting careful experiments to nail down all the variables.)