I wonder... perhaps linux driver issues were more entertaining 20-30 years ago because there were less peripherals to worry about. Eg no wifi, no power management, etc etc. Nowadays computers are more complex, it's more involved, more exhausting?
Actually, it was very analogous to Asahi too. At the time, there was Yellow Dog Linux which was a project to make Linux run on (at the time current) PPC macs. I ran it on both Xserves and Powerbooks (although I only remember really being successful with the Xserves). Even then, the restricted amount of hardware present in Apple machines made it much easier to support that small subset in Linux. Funny enough -- Yellow Dog was also where the "yum" program started.
None of these things are that new... all of these have happened before and will happen again.
It's not like people are trying to individually purchase PCI sound/ethernet/modem/graphics; they just get these components from the south bridge and they don't think about it at all. This makes things much easier, and gives a clear target for community notes/contributions.
I suspect that the reason he is describing this systems admin work as exhausting is because we've moved on. Personally, I only care about the thing I'm doing with the computer I happen to be sitting at, as opposed to computer itself.
Separately, power management is not a new detail: https://www.lpthe.jussieu.fr/~talon/pentiumII.pdf The Pentium II processor supplies a STPCLK# pin to enable the processor to enter a low power state. When STPCLK# is asserted, the processor puts itself into the Stop-Grant state. The processor continues to snoop bus transactions while in Stop-Grant state. When STPCLK# is deasserted, the processor restarts its internal clock to all units and resumes execution. The assertion of STPCLK# has no effect on the bus clock.