Burying power cables doesn’t help against direct lightning strikes. If lightning hits your house, underground power cables will do nothing.

Electrical engineers don’t know code requirements and wiring guidelines for household electrical wiring. They’re absolutely not the correct default. Electricians with specialization in generator setups, sure, but an electrician engineer on average is likely going to be more uninformed on code requirements than an electrician.

But that has nothing to do with the technology per-se. You could recreate this by just having CDs that don’t use all their space for music and having more of them, if the goal is dynamism. It’s a restriction, not a benefit. You could do the same exact thing with an iPod with playlists that are shorter, and not auto playing after the playlist ends.

In what world is $150 “way too high” for a battery and a keyboard replacement on a laptop, including installation? Ever looked at pricing from OEMs on their batteries?

Linux isn't a real choice for 99.9% of the population. If you're advising someone else on buying a laptop in an authority sense, rather than a colleague sense... telling someone to buy a Linux laptop (or, buy a laptop and put Linux on it), is a recipe for being tech support for them forever.