In addition to repurposing some of the old electronics & the entire chassis, they have massive performance, complete repairability & upgradability, a max of 64GB RAM & 3 storage disks, all in a smallish (but thick) Thinkpad form-factor. Oh, and they come with two power supply options (USB-C and barrel jack) and have functional VGA ports and ethernet jacks. Batteries are a bit of a problem though.
So you're not a techie in the sense it's being used.
Techie can mean someone who's an expert on technology, but when it comes to talking about techies as consumers, it's about people who always chase the latest and greatest.
It's tautological, you're not a techie in this context if you don't consume new tech.
Why?
This is the way we end up having only mass-market, lowest-common-denominator products. Not fighting to get quality tooling for our niche is one of the important reasons we don't get any.
What counts is the majority of buyers after these techies.
It's similar the early buyers of a Tesla who could say "ahh it will be so eco I don't have to buy another car for 10 years" and, 3 years later they buy themselves the new model as they would have normally do with a combustion engine car. Consumers first.
The key point is that repairability is important and is a marketing ploy but isn't a real fundamental issue for wealthy techies. They will just get another laptop in a year or so.
It's the non techies that are important, not us! It's the majority and long tail, not the early adopters that this laptop should be for!