So what if systems have had socketed memory for decades. That doesn't mean anything. These are small form factor models with very little room inside and they want to cut the costs of production and support. That's the best way to do it.
I know the socketed is easier to change, but if the soldered memory doesn't fail as often, then they don't have to replace the motherboard as often. When they put sockets inside, they get a lot of DIYers doing their own upgrades and that's where the problems are. Flaky RAM, users not installing properly, hence, increased support costs.
Seriously, these low end system have very little profit margin to begin with and they have to do what they have to do to cut costs and improve reliability. It's a FACT that soldered RAM is more reliable than socketed. It's also face that Apple supplied memory is more reliable than 3rd party RAM. Faulty RAM is one of the biggest hardware problems and they are trying to reduce those problems and this is how they are doing it. It's not that big of a deal.
Floppys used to be used, but those went bye bye, same with optical drives, and now HDD's are going bye bye for SSDs. Well, in case you haven't noticed, soldered memory is the direction Apple has been going. They only have a few models with socketed RAM and they are the more expensive models for desktops. That's the direction they are going. Like it or not, that's their direction and I don't think they are going to go back. Just a gut feeling.
Just go on Apple's Support Community forum and do some searches on RAM related issues, just about every single one of them is 3rd party RAM related. You'll see people using 3rd party RAM have far more problems than Apple supplied RAM. Go look up the community submissions and look for yourself.
