I think you are right, at least from what I've read; I have to admit to no actual experience with actual, modern hardware construction.

Maybe some day I'll try tinkering with a hardware project again. I was in college when 555 timers, 741 op amps, and 7400 logic gates were the basic building blocks for simple projects. Electronics, even at the hobby level, is quite different now.

I never really lost interest in hardware after my EE college work, I just got more and more interested in software and did all of my graduate and professional work on the CS side.