For non-Apple laptops (ie, Dell) it's also possible to effectively brick the device by setting BIOS passwords that can't be undone without replacing a chip or similarly invasive means

One could also say the user did high risk travel without securing the device properly too.

In any case, Apple can't be blamed here. Apple does not know what really happened.

Here is a great example of why Apple takes the position they do:

Sim card takeovers. Remember when most of tech thought tying accounts to phone numbers was a good idea?

Remember the people saying that was a very bad idea?

People can get their digital lives taken, or very seriously impacted just by someone knowing a phone number!

The same social engineering and or permissive policy being advocated for in this laptop case gets used all the time to swap a user's sim card!

Once that has been done, the attacker can do password swaps and cause all sorts of grief.