Was a time when people actually had boards for bread, and kids swiped them to pound nails into, the which to solder wires from tube sockets and coils onto. No tubes, no coils, no bread, but still the same thing.
The holes to poke wires into are weirdly reminiscent of the tube sockets.
When I was about 12 or so I had an electrical kit that used screws with caps to connect the wires and components. I don't remember what the substrate was, but it could very well have been wood.
After a first pass trying to just wire it directly, I ended up hot gluing a tiny breadboard into the compartment. That went much better and allowed me to swap candidate parts until it was right.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wrap
Just "too permanent" for rapid prototyping / playing around?
The big problem is high speed signals.