I suppose we can talk about the ease or difficulty of changing through hole components vs. surface mount components on these Spike boards all day. The issue I have is what to change. When you turn on a GB and get a node 8 communication error that won't allow the game to boot, what do you look at? No manuals or schematics to clue you in is the issue. There are chips on the node boards that store ROM level game program information. What I've encountered hasn't been replacing a diode or transistor. You really don't want to try the shotgun approach to fixing these issues.