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It's not a coincidence - new cars have turbochargers and electronic engine control that provide huge performance/efficiency gains and necessarily are harder to repair.

Your average shitty 4-banger from the 80s or 90s is not remotely comparable to a new engine - in almost every respect (including reliability!) the new one is better.

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Turbochargers date back to the 1920s, and I'd rather troubleshoot a modern EFI/GDI system than a carburetor any day of the week.

Sure they're old, but my understanding is that outside of diesels and aircraft they were too fiddly and unreliable to put in common use.

New engines also have thin blocks, which cannot be honed

New engines don't ever need to be honed. You can change the performance parameters in software easily enough.

honing is part of rebuild

Yes, and who exactly is going to rebuild a $2000 engine instead of buying a new one?

The labor costs ALONE make that a horrible idea for anyone who isn't a mechanic already - and if an engine lasts ten years the depreciation on the car is intense enough that it doesn't matter.

I doubt you could buy a new engine for $2k. And this whole thing that you are arguing for, it's called throwaway products

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