[alanbernstein]

Fair enough! Personally, when I reuse broken electronics, it's often because I'm scavenging more mechanical parts like ports and switches. I think those would tend to survive either method, as long as you're not utterly destroying the device.

[hilbert42]

Right, scavenging for mechanical parts is also my main aim (LSIs etc are now so specific they're useless as spares). For example, only a week or so ago I had to replace a PCB-mounted USB connector on one of my PVRs and I scavenged its replacement from an old mobo. :-)