"""But the Mac's becoming more of an appliance, and while it's safer, easier, and more convenient for most users, it makes it a substantially less desirable machine for me to hack on."""

You do understand that in Lion, say, nothing, absolutely nothing has been taken away from you that you could do back in 10.1 or even NeXT.

So, this "the Mac's becoming more of an appliance" is just bullshit, just blindly following the latest trend in "hacker" circles (and probably a hacker's desire to buy a new, different system to tinker with).