I respectfully disagree. Apple actually has a fairly extensive
Security Overview for the T2 chip goes into a lot of detail about its' various security features; if you're interested in all the various stuff it does, or believe that Apple hasn't "said" enough what it does, I highly recommend giving it a read. I also don't think it's far-fetched to say that a lot of these security features would be possible entirely without some amount of restrictions, because many of them are restrictive in nature. But as I said in my previous comment – any of the major security-related restrictions of the T2 chip, other than maybe the rather niche restriction that you posted this thread about, can be turned off completely, so I don't really see how that is so much of a problem. The T2 chip isn't just giving the user more security, it's also giving him
more granular control about how much security they want.
That document also mentions a lot of lesser-known advantages of the T2 chip BTW, for example that it prevents access to the microphone when your MacBook's lid is closed (preventing unwanted access), that enabling/disabling FileVault is now instantaneous (instead of taking up hours or days and preventing you from doing Time Machine backups), among other things. Thought I'd mention because you asked.
In regards to the non-security-related features of the T2 chip, I kinda agree with you that Apple could communicate them a bit better. For example, they didn't officially start to talk about its' HEVC encoding capabilities until last year's October event, even though that's a pretty big selling point for some people. (Nevertheless, several reviewers and professionals did figure that out on their own prior to this point, which speaks about the value of this feature.) Even aside from the more commonly-known "Hey Siri" and Touch ID functionality, there are also a couple of other in some instances very useful but barely mentioned or talked-about features such as that it acts as an image signal processor and reportedly improves the camera image quality, or its' improvements to the speaker sound, or that it allows you to use your internal speakers while external ones are plugged into the headphone jack, something that you AFAIK can't do on Macs without it (I'm actually surprised that, with how many people to this day raise vocal criticisms about Apple's removal of the headphone jack on the iPhone, such a feature that
benefits nobody else but headphone jack users isn't acknowledged more).
Either way, I'm not seeing any contradiction to my hypothesis if I'm honest. I agree with you that Apple could talk about some of these features more, but there are definitely a lot of (even if only minor) problems that Apple is solving with it. In a time where we learn about more and more security deficiencies of Intel's CPUs (and some of them pretty bad), I think Apple is taking the right path here by making security and privacy a big part of their approach to chip design on the Mac. The T2 chip is not without downsides (the kernel panics that some people experience to this date arguably being the largest one, IMO), but I definitely see where Apple is going with the chip, and consequences like your case OP, as unfortunate as it may be for you, are clearly the side-effect of what Apple is doing in my eyes, not the purpose.
Apple isn't even "attacking" Intel and "making them the whipping boy", AFAIK (if they do, feel free to prove me wrong). I think their approach is quite the opposite of that: they are trying to silently fade out Intel and fade in their own chips for as long as they can. Someone in another thread a while ago pointed out that in the Mac-focused 2018 October event, the word "Intel" was said exactly once, and no detailed specs were mentioned for any of the new Macs. They still list all the necessary specs on the product pages, of course, but their way of dealign with Intel and their fiascos is by talking about them as little as possible, which is quite the opposite from attacking them.
I think it stands to reason how factual that "fact" that you dropped actually is (I think
@Stephen.R is pretty on-point with his response to that), but even if it's true, I'm just not seeing why Apple should be villainized for their decision to move to their custom-made ARM chips. For comparison's sake, let's say you own a fish restaurant and have been getting fresh fish from that one vendor for almost 20 years now, and he has delivered you good fish for many years. But for a couple years in a row now, his products just has gotten worse and worse, to the point where you don't feel comfortable serving it to your customers anymore. So you instead send out your own fishers and they bring you much better fish, so you decide to transition to your own caught fish, and because you don't want to badmouth the old fisher, you just don't talk about him if someone asks you about him. Are you really the villain in this situation? Are you really bullying the old fish vendor just because you don't buy his fish anymore?
Of course, I'm oversimplifying here, and we can't say anything with certainty until Apple has actually announced their switch to ARM, which probably won't happen for at least another 1-2 years. But I do think that this is the gist of it: Apple is tired of mediocre, unexciting refreshes and of designing their Macs around thermal designs of CPUs that Intel then postpones way past any reasonable deadlines, and they believe that they themselves can do better. And if they actually
can do better is something only time will tell, but judging by their excellent iOS chip improvements over recent years, I'd say the chances are good.
I don't think the T2 chip prevents you from exchanging batteries, whether you're Apple or a third-party repair shop? And I'm also not sure if the T2 chip has as much influence on whether or not the individual parts of the machine are replaceable or not as you think. MacBook Pros already had their SSDs etc. soldered onto the motherboard since a while now, even before they received the T2 chip, this is not exclusive to T2 Macs. Also Apple has also already said that the upcoming Mac Pro to be modular, yet I have a hard time imagining the Mac Pro to be released without the T2 chip or some successor or derivative of it; so it's even possible that the T2 does allow for some substitutability of parts (probably not the SSD, but other internals – the RAM for example in the 2018 Mac mini is replaceable despite T2 chip, it could be the same story for other parts of the new Mac Pro). I agree that Apple is generally gravitating towards making less and less parts of a Mac user-replaceable, but I just don't see this connection to the T2 chip that you keep talking about.
Similarly, I also don't think the T2 chip is "maximizing their profits" by any tangible means, other than by providing more features that make the Mac more compelling for some customers to buy, for reasons I've already went into. I would ask you to elaborate on that point and, well, if not provide evidence for it then at least explain how Apple is in your opinion earning more money by locking customers out of installing Linux or having them suffer from kernel panics (because if anything, shouldn't that have the adverse effect of pushing people away from the Mac?), but judging by how
@Stephen.R was essentially crucified for doing that, I think I better don't.
About the rest of your post – well, I generally do understand your frustration. I'm also not happy about many of Apple's decisions, design-wise and otherwise, and I had a lot of gripes with Apple over the recent years that I could go into, but this post has already gotten way too long. But the T2 chip, or the ARM-switch in general, is currently not something I have an issue with. The T2 chip isn't unilaterally good, it certainly does have issues, but it is overwhelmingly a good thing for the Mac, in my opinion. It is an (in some regards very successful) attempt to innovate in chip design, in a time where many other manufacturers don't or aren't able to.
