After DMC's comment I looked up some YouTubes about it. The best description was by a guy who'd made a steampunk phone. He'd pulled off the cover and had various components on a wooden board - it looked pretty quirky and cool.
He was talking about the appeal of taking off covers and being able to see how things work ... to be more connected with the processes behind our contraptions rather than just accepting everything as a black box. It seems to be an attempt to regain that sense of groundedness that's been lost as we increasingly put things between ourselves and what we're doing.
I like, and can relate to, the concept but not enough to change my current modus operandi. I think devoting yourself to it would be fairly limiting.
Here's an accidental steampunk cartoon. I drew this freehand while sitting in a shopping centre waiting for a friend. I scanned it and then did some cleaning up and colourising on the PC - organic meets digital ...