That's not what I was trying to describe by offering project Ara as an example. Intel NUCs are an ITX board in a box with the usual ports. Not an ecosystem of quickly interchangeable modules that offering rapid change in utility.
The problem is that's a lot of jargon, and yes I know what a form factor is, DDR is, and if you look again, I clearly wrote PCI-*, as PCI-Express, which is NOT deprecated.
It's a lot of jargon to know when you want to build a device that hangs out and films birds, or some other overly specific example to make the point.
If general computing is stuck there, it seems like a bit of cultural functional fixedness over what general computing should be. Which is all over our nostalgia tripping culture.
The big grief I have with "general computing" platforms is their insistence of sticking with the traditional form factor.
ATX, ITX, PCI-, DDR ...outdated, overboard, clunky designs for most people.
Take a Mac Mini-like design, and make modules that can stack or otherwise attach to expand capabilities. IMO, this is what Apple should do and be done with the whole "But Mac Pro users ...!"
A project Ara-like desktop, both its size and modularity, would probably offer more than enough computing power for most users (browsing, office, youtube).