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Yeah, they're alright laptops, but not as special as they were at their peak. The keyboards were (arguably) best in class, they were modular and repairable even by the standards of the time (the CPUs were socketed until T440p!), and really well-built machines overall.

But I admit that some of my attraction to them is because I prefer how some things were done back then.

The old laptop keyboards with a lot of travel, and the old-style trackpoints with a big leverage, are tactile and nice to operate. Thinkpads have the best of both from that era IMO. I know where everything is even in the dark, the long travel prevents accidentally pressing a key, the feedback is decisive. The only way to compete is to stick a mechanical keyboard in a laptop. Oh, and if you do have trouble finding a key in the dark, there's an exceptionally cute thinklight you can turn on.

Hotswap batteries are amazing, you can take two charged with you and just swap them over quickly without mucking about with powerbanks and such.

The physical screen latch means it is closed securely enough to throw papers/a yubikey in the closed laptop, and yet you can easily open it with one hand without the body lifting from the table. Closing it produces a satisfying clunk.

Lack of a trackpad means that you can dedicate more space to a keyboard even on a tiny laptop.

The old laptops are thick, but they have a lot of ports which can come in handy. (I do prefer framework's approach to this, though).

I understand that all this went away because the new way of doing things saves on cost and nobody cares, or people outright prefer it over the alternative. But damn would I pay a few grand for an Theseus-style upgradeable "forever laptop" that would have at least some of those features. I'll probably cave and get a used framework eventually.