I've worked the hardware side all my life in electronics. Yep, the shit is old and we don't built much of shit here anymore, just maintaining the old shit. Everthing now is routers, switches and servers. everyhting is a fucking network now. I agree with the OP and I am equally tired of the hurry up and fix it now, with limited documentation at times and barely a decent schematic if any. They want it fast but they couldn't fix it themselves if they had to. All they know most of the time is their keyboards.

Someone the other night posted a thread about learning web design because there weren't any jobs to be found. I said yeah, that's right, shoot for the moon but when the EMPs come your fucking software ain,t gonna run without a working transistor. Learn some fixin skills that you can barter with when TSHTF.

Fuck software. Hardware was running by itself long before software came around and together they are a great pair but one can live without the other.

The 1% that only know their keyboards and not how it works will be the first to scurry to the bunkers. When it's all over, their fucked.