You'll see plenty of nice devices scoring high marks. You'll also find comparable competitors scoring low mark.
Lack of repairability is mostly a choice - an active choice. Browsing the low scores on the list I linked to, you'll see that companies do extra work to reduce repairability, sometimes with express purpose of just making things harder to repair.
There are no technical reasons why so many devices are not repairable. There is only moral bankrupcy at institutional level, and lack of regulation that would force the market players to stop behaving antisocially.
Look closer. Not just at maximum score, but at the spectrum. You can see e.g. iPhones scoring 7 and (for the last two years) 6 out of 10, whereas Samsung Galaxy phones went from 8/10 (S4) to 3/10 (S10) or even 2/10 (Fold).
This list is nice demonstrator that looks have very little to do with repairability.
Of course, you won't see it until the makers get their shit together. Why else would they glue things such that one can't replace even some cheap component and instead having to buy a new phone?
For now the ruse brings the loot, as with everything, it goes in waves, this shall pass and we shall eventually get to a stage where we will find balance in this matter.
Currently, the battery is what pretty much limits the device profile. All the miniaturization achieved on the components should actually aid in nice, modular design that allows replacement of particular faulty part (if you can deglue the whole thing first).
iPhone 4. And probably 5. I've only ever opened a couple of iPhone 4 and 4s, but they were definitely way more repair friendly than an S8 or a HTC One.
And does 1mm under 9mm even matter? Maybe if you're one of those who claim a 15 inch laptop will break your back lol
I'll believe it when I see it. Thus far all easily repairable mobile phones I've seen were ugly and bulky compared to normal phones.