@jconsole, I hope you have found your answer to this issue. I’m embarking on a similar journey with my daughter’s Macbook Air 2011 that she just bought for college. I, like you, know that the soldering process is not an impediment when you have access to the right equipment - regardless of what others have said - and am interested to know how the memory upgrade process for these laptops is achieved. I’ve currently ordered a 4 GB RAM logic board to replace her 2 GB native PCB but wonder if more is possible. The real question is whether the Apple OS is capable of addressing more than 4 GB for these models, which I presume they would be, but if the OS doesn’t support or recognize more than the 4 GB there is no point. If only I had time to take my daughter’s laptop into the lab and see it’s limitations but, alas, I have no time. I hope you made out well with yours.

Now that we have an entirely logical answer, here’s a decidedly more illogical but fun possibility:

I’m going to go with a more off-the-wall and Goldberg-ian idea - the metal plunger is designed to be used with a docking station with a moveable magnet to simultaneously help align the phone for wireless charging and also allow the docking station to move the alert switch in response to a pre-programmed user schedule. Entirely unnecessary and far from pragmatic but, woah! Right?!