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Well because like you said - it's a general purpose controller. Maybe it can drive any display accepting voltage input between 5 and 12V, which means that you can use it with a display that only supports 5-8V range - you just limit the range in software and make sure the user can't select anything about 8V. But if a device is hacked and the controller sent direct commands, then of course it could lead to issues.

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Well that's fair for the switch. It's a locked down platform and sold as such. If you hack, you're doing so at your own risk.

But is that really the case for these laptops? Seems kind of negligent from the manufacturer if so.

LEDs are current driven, not voltage driven. It's still weird as most controllers have the current set via resistor (either the value of inline resistor used for current measurement, or separate one), why wouldn't you set that to the max one for the panel ?

edit: https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/AP3019A.pdf example of simple one. The value of the single resistor decides the max current.

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