Meanwhile, most of the components in my desktop are older than three years, and it's doing just fine.
That, to me, is the real tragedy/travesty. There should be some eco-EU-law or something against that, a bit like the micro USB charger standardisation. I say this typing from a 2008 (or was it 2009?) MacBook on which i've been able to replace the RAM (8GB), disk drive (SSD, single biggest improvement) and battery (lasts longer than when new from factory now), and all of those upgrades weren't expensive at all. Of course i run Linux and XMonad and pretty much the only graphical app is Firefox with NoScript, but still, i can't see myself forking out hard $$$ for a non-maintainable machine. The upgradability isn't even the big deal for me, because as someone else pointed out these days computers are "fast enough", it's the fact that certain components are just going to fail (especially the battery). And it absolutely sends sickly shivers down my spine that people are being forced to landfill perfectly okay hardware because of a battery becoming worn out. Seriously Apple, where have your holistic eco-friendly principles gone?