Re: Yes you can replace the battery
"Soo...$200 for a battery and fitting when I'm perfectly capable of getting one from a third party for a fraction of that price and fitting it myself (or would be if the machine was easily serviceable)"
Which it isn't, so you can't do it yourself. So your argument makes no sense. I can't upgrade the RAM or flash storage in an Android phone either, but nobody seems to be whining about that.
Where, exactly, is it engraved in stone that computer MUST have user-serviceable parts inside? They're all consumer electronics now. The days when computers were subject to the likes of geeks and inveterate tinkerers are long over; those people are a tiny, tiny fraction of the market. And they're welcome to just go buy a PC and shove some flavour of Linux or BSD on it.
Also, the original Wired article (written by an iFixit guy, so hardly unbiased) repeats the myth that the batteries in Apple's laptops are only good for 300 cycles. That hasn't been the case since the very first MacBook Air: the one in my 2010 MacBook Pro is rated for one thousand cycles and, at this rate, will last me another ten years yet. (Remember, that "1000 cycles" figure is when the battery can only hold 80% of its original maximum capacity. It'll still work for some time after that number of cycles has passed.)
And, as others have pointed out, Apple are legally obliged to recycle all their products themselves, for free, thanks to EU legislation. (They're also obliged to offer a minimum 2-year warranty throughout the EU, no matter what the likes of PC World in the UK believe. And, yes, this applies in the UK too. So I doubt very much that they're deliberately fitting their new computers and devices with batteries that have any chance of expiring with that period—or even the three years of their AppleCare warranty, which they sell for peanuts to educational purchases such as students.)
As for the industrial-strength glue, I have one word for you: industrial-strength solvents. When you're recycling an old, dead, computer, you're not that fussed about being gentle with it.