So imagine it wasn't soldered. Was apple justified back then asking for $200 for another 4gb of DDR3? Absolutely not. The RAM was identical to what you could get from crucial or anyone else. HDD upgrades were the same way. It's just a 2.5" SATA but Apple's pricing suggested they were made of gold. Maybe soldered ram is more justified today, but you'd be ignorant of the history of this company to suggest they aren't simultaneously trying to screw you on upgrades.
Yes, I made those same upgrades both personally and professionally. I’m not saying you can’t criticize pricing, just that in a technical forum I’d also expect acknowledgement that there are benefits rather than an assertion rejecting that possibility.
I’d also be curious how many people ever did this - one interesting question is what percentage of users need to actually use an option for it to be expected. I haven’t looked for data in years but at one point heard that it was something under 20% of people ever upgrading their Mac.
