The new Mac Minis seem like a pretty good middle ground, user upgradable RAM, decently powerful Desktop grade CPUs, and no hardware keyboards to fail. Admittedly, the SSD tied to the T2 chip is a slight issue, but otherwise if you're tied to the Apple ecosystem, it seems like a good fit.
I've been super happy with mine since last fall, and just this week, upgraded the 8GB of ram to 32GB myself, took a whole 15 mins to insert it and put everything back together.
I've been super happy with mine since last fall, and just this week, upgraded the 8GB of ram to 32GB myself, took a whole 15 mins to insert it and put everything back together.