This is exactly me. When that thing finally died I looked at everything Apple had to offer and decided nothing under $2k was worth buying and I sure as shit don't have $2k for a laptop. I don't answer anymore when people ask for laptop recommendations. Dell is shit, HP is shit, Lenovo and ASUS are shit, Apple solders everything and removes all the ports. I wish it were as easy to build your own laptop as it was a desktop but that will never happen. When I ever decide to buy another one I might get a Surface but that's not really a laptop and I can't stand the keyboards they slap on them. I had a white Macbook at the time and you could take 'em apart if you were brave. Memory? No prob. Battery? Went through three. Hard drive? Two of 'em.
Apparently if you wanna get dumb about it there are companies like Origin what will let you get stupid with it. But I haven't needed to get stupid with it. Yet. dunno. Might have to mix a short film while away from my rig which means I might be leaning that way.