Entirely up to you. Point is, vote with your money.
> There isn't any high end CPU in laptops without those useless things now.
Even not considering processors from Intel/AMD?
> I don't think you've ever shopped for laptops,
I've purchased 6 in my life.
> Looking for the specific combination of having 32gb of ram, 1tb of SSD, an AMD CPU (with Intel's current manufacturing woes I was not willing to gamble), an NVIDIA GPU with a minimum of 8 gb of vram took far more efforts than I am normally to spend doing activities like shopping.
So be less picky or find a laptop that lets up upgrade the parts.
> I don't feel like wasting time shipping crap myself when I could just exchange it in place if it happened.
Fine, but this is a compromise you are willing to make, just like paying for the NPU. That's my point.
You don't need a super modern laptop.
How many years from now? There isn't any high end CPU in laptops without those useless things now.
> buy an older model that doesn't
I don't think you've ever shopped for laptops, or you're lucky and live in a country that is particularly plentiful for choices in PCs. Looking for the specific combination of having 32gb of ram, 1tb of SSD, an AMD CPU (with Intel's current manufacturing woes I was not willing to gamble), an NVIDIA GPU with a minimum of 8 gb of vram took far more efforts than I am normally to spend doing activities like shopping. And now you tell me "do all that while looking for a model that predates NPUs"?
Of course I could order online from god knows where but I like buying from retailers that are known to honor their warranty well and good since there's always the possibility of buying lemons and I don't feel like wasting time shipping crap myself when I could just exchange it in place if it happened.