I see no problem here, just a lot of hand flapping. The stock pods are good for twenty or thirty years (mine lasted 26). It's a big job to remove the dash and replace all the pods, but not one that has to be done often. Sure, you could replace all five vacuum pods with cables. But you'd have to pull the dash to do that anyway. And you'd be left with a control panel that looked like it had been hacked together by a teenager in metal shop. Since this isn't a problem you have, you can avoid it by not buying the car.