@skylar @lanodan @ocean @coolboymew It's funny, even back in the early/mid '00s when ThinkPads had service manuals and simple, robust procedures for replacing every possible component of interest including screens and CPUs, contemporary business laptops from HP and the like also had them. I can't speak to the true IBM days which may well be peak ThinkPad for all I know.
Some impressions may well be people buying used 2007 business laptops in 2015 and thinking the brand is an outlier in the market rather than that the market has changed.