....in what way would you change your comments if you include hardware considerations?
I'm not sure if you mean from a "user experience" perspective or for "tinkering under the hood" so I'll answer both.
Hardware and User Experience - Unchanged view, except perhaps that the hardware has improved in a way that it further enhances the experience - faster speeds, better monitors, improved storage et cetera. I will concede that many things we buy these days - cars, communications, and so on - have been enhanced.
Hardware and Tinkering - The amount of tinkering that I would want to do is adequately covered with the DIYs that Apple provides for things like internal resets, memory upgrades, swapping hard drives.......and so on. (Supplemented with helpful tips at FTM)
It's not different than tinkering around the house. There are a number of things I will tackle, after buying code books and reading manuals, but there are also lines I just won't cross.
With Macs there may well be people who want to tinker with hardware more than I do, but they likely have steelier nerves than I.
ryck