The cost of these laptops are astronomical for the hardware you're getting. Don't get me wrong, these are valuable products, and it's nice to see them on the market. However, you can pick up a used, fully function X200 for as little as $50, often around $80. Then you need...what, a beagle bone, an arduino board, some wires and clips, a soldering iron, and some free time? Add in another $100-150 for necessary materials, and you could probably reproduce one of these for ~$200?

Alternatively, strip out the guts and squeeze in an Odroid, Radxa Rock, or something similar.

The knowledge of how to perform this kind of change isn't to be so easily discounted, but with patience and a willingness to learn, it could be done. It's great to have such a product on the market, but you're easily approaching the "Apple Tax" territory with this kind of price increase. You're basically paying over $400 for someone to flash the bios.