here in California there were zero instances of "flashing a ROM" among ordinary developers -- it was obviously illegal (maybe a reason) but also you just buy a Mac and get the rom image.. Macs were everywhere... fifty percent of the Macs in the world were in this area, by some measures at some time.

This was the nightmare of Apple from the early days and they actively pursued it. Also, intelligent people in the creative professions were inventing things.