Resources for bicycle compatibility
If you want something utilitarian and practical leaning, the closest thing to your &quot;Thinkpad and not a Macbook&quot; analogy is going to be something from one of the spare-parts-bin-oriented frameset companies like Surly, Soma, etc.
If you want something more mainstream and performance-oriented, you'll just want to avoid bikes with proprietary gimmick type features and proprietary standards. There are more companies doing that kind of thing than there used to be, but it's not ubiquitous. What is fairy ubiquitous now is brands adopting new standards at a rate fast enough to cause confusion because things have been changing relatively quickly in the era we're in, but they're still standards.

20 years ago, there were a few resources that did a decent job at being all-inclusive compatibility references. Sutherland's Handbook and Barnett's Manual were what shops used, and sheldonbrown.com was available for free and also could answer most compatibility questions. Sutherland's was the big kahuna of these. In the time since then, the speed of change in the industry has outstripped any such efforts on seemingly anyone's part, free or not. There are no singular and definitive resources for bicycle technical information anymore. Those who used to be in that game have quit. If you're into old bikes or want to learn about some of the foundational ideas, these are still good sources however.
You have it pretty close; in many cases choosing the Shimano offering will keep you out of trouble as well as be solid value, but it really depends on what kind of bike you're talking about.
Steel bikes lend themselves the most to someone that even cares about long-term maintainability and parts interchangeability. Avoid cranks with proprietary bolt patterns unless you have good reason not to. Figure out what high gear and low gear numbers you need access to and let your component decisions flow from there. Use friction front shifting if you value the ability to do what you want with your components.