I don't exactly agree. While the internal hardware does tend to receive less emphasis now, the physical build quality has increasingly been given a scientific treatment, and for good reason: it's the part that matters the most! A phone with an inferior camera, screen, and battery life is a worse phone for most people. So there are lots of reviews that subject these elements to tests with measurable results. That really wasn't the case years and years ago: the fact that the features of a device actually worked was often novelty enough.
I don't think the "physical build quality" is treated objectively at all. Instead it is all subjective. Take the material of the phone - "glass/aluminium is expensive to build this precisely, therefore it is a luxury experience". But on any actual objective measurements of physical properties - scratch resistance, weight, toughness - these materials are pretty poor compared to some alternatives.
However, the alternatives like eg. polycarbonate plastic are perceived as "cheap" even though they may be better from a specifications point of view.
Gorilla Glass is one of those rare product features that is so much better than the alternatives it's like magic. It's not strictly indestructible if you drop it, but you can just chuck it in a bag with your keys and not worry about it. Unlike polycarbonate.
Plastic-bodied laptops flex a bit more than metal ones. If you've got a large one and you regularly pick it up from one side the flexing can gradually crack the PCB. I agree that aluminium scratches up rather badly.
(Handily the Dow Corning website will list products using it, so you can avoid worrying about whether the vendor is using an imitation toughened glass)
