Maybe the point with the "bulk material" sounds strange for most readers...
But remembering all the Ataris, Amigas, old Macs even (original) IBM PCs... I really think they all were not just some "faceless" throw-away hardware.
Maybe just a slight attack of "old nerd stating everything was better during the good old times".
I really don't miss the fights between dozens of incompatible systems, but what I miss is computers that you don't buy per weight.