This lack of repairability is actually not a recent thing at all. For example, I worked a support job in the late 90s where a high proportion of Applecare complaints were resolved with "replace the motherboard." With PCs we just replaced the offending part, which was rarely the motherboard.
The worst part of this is that Apple's success has dragged the rest of the market toward things like non-replaceable batteries.
The real problem is that lithium-ion batteries suck in every dimension except energy density. They're fragile, can blow up, don't allow many charge/discharge cycles, and charge slowly.
There are other battery technologies, such as lithium iron phosphate, which have much better lifetimes, but you give up some energy density. Sealed units should use one of those technologies.
> The worst part of this is that Apple's success has dragged the rest of the market toward things like non-replaceable batteries
I think that statement is only half right. Apple may have pioneered the move towards non-replaceable batteries, but I think it's only a symptom of increasingly integrated and small devices. If an inch thick device is thicker by 1mm because the battery is easily detachable, that's much less of an issue than on a 10mm laptop.
They may have done it in an egregious way first (gluing/soldering in components), but we probably would have gotten there before long anyway.
I've used Apple products since the early 90s. Replacing the MB is the only option since almost all components are on the MB (sound, GPU, modem, network). In contrast PCs had everything highly compartmentalised according to the PC/AT spec. Sound was ISA/PCI, video was AGP/PCI, modems were ISA, 10/100baseT PCI.
While I agree I know very few people that actually replaced their battery. Usually, when the battery died is about the time they replace that laptop anyway.
The worst part of this is that Apple's success has dragged the rest of the market toward things like non-replaceable batteries.