I have never bought a new laptop (desktops are another thing) for more than 30 years now. I just get old ones. Usually from clients or friends at bigger companies, that are replacing them at a Windows upgrade. Then I wipe the disks (even if I would hope they are already wiped) and install Linux. Works for me. And I have lost a few to theft, heavy rain, drops, bumpy bus rides, wine spilling, etc. So I was happy it was not new macbooks.

But I doubt that I could have gotten a firmware password for most of them. They would just have been thrown in the garbage.

I also got a couple of phones that could be used for testing web-apps. The last one was locked, and it would be pointless to try to get it unlocked.

Maybe the BIOS should give you full ownership if it can check that the device is not reported missing after one week. But I guess that would give robbers a motive to kill the owners.

Maybe devices should just unlock when they 5 years old.