The other thing is that the state of enclosures for the finished part has gotten a lot better. When I was doing electronics projects in high school, I was always stymied by enclosures that cost $100 and had to be heavily modified. I didn't have that kind of money, and I didn't have a drill and all the hole saws necessary to make a good front panel. If I was lucky, I put it in a shoebox or an Altoids tin, but I mostly had bare perboards laying around on my workbench, longing for a real home.

Now 3D printing is a thing, and it excels at making enclosures for your projects. With a couple hours in CAD, you can have a perfect enclosure on the first try, and they work and look great. Since getting a 3D printer a few years ago, every bare circuit board project in my house has gotten an enclosure, and it's wonderful. You aren't constantly worried about static shocking it, or pulling out some critical wire. You can just use the thing you built like it's a real product.