Interesting. I guess I see through-hole stuff as more advanced because if a PCB is involved, there’s usually something expensive around there that you can actually damage with a (genuinely!) poor soldering technique. Through-hole or pads, that’s ESPs and drone flight controllers territory for me, or building DIY batteries.

A random frayed power cord, well, you can dump a ton of heat in it and start 6 times over and it won’t really matter. Worst case you replace some isolation or a warped connector.