It's not like Tim Cook personally decided to put the button there, but saying over many years he's aligned the company to be one that would leave the button there rather than bite the cost of putting it somewhere more ergonomic is something I can buy into. Seems like a way to improve margins generation over generation, which is the kind of thing he's obsessed with.
This is also the same Apple that made the G4 Cube: that felt like this in reverse, with Jobs driving them to make a capacitive touch button because of an obsession with a seamless surface.
Yes that's it. Jobs's annoyances were always about achieving a better product, a higher level of refinement or something of the sort. It was mostly about, "it can be better this way" and he was very often right even though sometimes not.
On the other hand, with Cook, it's always about cost cutting and corner cutting and the likes. It feels cheap (especially considering the pricing and brand aspirations) but also primitive and unrefined.
Which is why their price escalation was unjustified, if you want to charge a lot you need to figure out a no compromise product and, in my opinion, they have not been there a lot recently...
This is also the same Apple that made the G4 Cube: that felt like this in reverse, with Jobs driving them to make a capacitive touch button because of an obsession with a seamless surface.