Weird proprietary parts streams. There are a lot of things that have that kind of ecosystem.

(And a lot of the them can be kludged, and... then you get to decide how much your time is worth versus the ridiculous amount of money you can save. There are way too many things around the lab that it is known that I can fix - like the non user serviceable hydraulic micro manipulators, for one of the more amusing examples - but then, I had it in the back of my head that if my health didn't improve enough to really make a proper go at research, I could be the best lab manager ever.)