It just so happens that about 10 years ago desktop CPU and DRAM had just made leaps, was cheap and ever since has been relatively stagnant. As for laptops, only very recently did anything notable happen and that's in Apple land.

What actually is your complaint though, what are you missing and from whom do you expect what? Both Dell and HP are selling new laptops with official Linux support, if that's what you want, has there ever been a better time?