(My offspring has an X240, and it's terrible. And I hear that newer ThinkPads even have soldered-in RAM and glued-in batteries. I don't know what I'll do when my X230 wears out. Maybe bite the bullet and buy a Framework.)
X250 was my favourite of that form-factor, as it still had external and internal battery replaceable easily by user. I seem to recall even upgrading the RAM. They can be found for $250ish CAD if you wait/bargain a little.
I too however could never commit to a project like that; just don't have the time/energy/priority. I believe it's the type of thing you undertake for the process, not results :). I ended up being one of those fools who paid for a T470-but-with-good-keyboard, the T25 Anniversary model, and 3 years later I'm still a very happy fool :).
1. If you use TrackPoint, the lack of buttons is murderous. Just a complete deal breaker. I have no idea how it passed any usability testing.
2. If you use trackpad alone, we still felt it was inferior to the 30 or 50 series. Clicking trackpad did not feel "positive" somehow; felt like sometimes it would register a click, sometimes it would register a swipe before the click.
Most of all, it made it difficult to JUST CLICK. Imagine you're in photoshop and you want to select a specific pixel... if you have a dedicated button, np. With buttons integrated with trackpad, it felt that I could never select the specific pixel without it moving ever so slightly when I just wanted to push a button.
https://community.frame.work/t/what-keyboard-options-will-be...
My franken230 is my “thinking machine”… it’s what I use any time I want to write something out because the experience of typing on it is so nice.