It’s just a different layer of abstraction. The chips on your SSD in your thinkpad are also soldered without any easy way to replace them save for replacing the whole SSD. Same for your RAM.

Now in a modern laptop it’s the top case or bottom case or board; the robot-made factory parts are bigger integrated components of the system. All you care about is your data anyway, the repairability of the system as a whole by swapping out components at home (admittedly a large culture in the PC world, as silly as it is these days when all you’re doing is connecting a robot factory gpu to a robot factory cpu and choosing a PSU and RAM (also made in robot factories)) isn’t that important.

I hope one day that computing gets so small and light and dense and integrated that I can’t replace any single components without a robot factory and/or microscope. I want a solid microscopically integrated slab (which is what my iPad Pro is basically approaching).

I see what you are saying at some level - but for a laptop form factor (which is already inherently larger since it has keyboard and larger screen) wouldn't it make more sense to at minimum have a few super dense robot made boards all integrated ?

Maybe you have the main motherboard with CPU, RAM, and possibly GPU all together. Save space - integrate bigger and better batteries.

Swappable storage though seems like a no brainer (especially because even the fastest SSDs don't require the kind of latency and link speed soldered RAM might). A modern card type slot for peripherals seems like a damn nice addition too along with the ability to swap the WiFi chip.

Hell I would even settle for an easily swapped mobo with soldered parts if I wanted to upgrade down the line - a good screen and keyboard and chassis can last a long time !