Yeah, I can’t be too unfair to this case design. I don’t mind it too much, though it definitely isn’t my favorite.
As per the 1997 date there - it’s not for the reason you think. That 190cs was sold in 95 or 96. The issue was that they had major quality problems with the whole range of 190/5300 laptops, and as such a super-extended warranty became a thing. They’d swap out all sorts of parts, basically everything in the unit, case plastics included. From what I’ve heard the plastics were super brittle in these units from day 1, and would crack and crumble. Basically all of them went through apple’s service center for repairs, and the ones that came out were in a much better place reliability wise. Thus, the 1997 manufacture date on that part.
I’ve heard from some sources that the hinge warranty in particular went for 7 years on these due to the issues - that potentially means that you get one of these serviced into the 2000s, though I haven’t confirmed this.