The hardware wallet has a single use-case. It is for storing your private keys airgapped from your hot wallet. You compile a transaction, upload it to your wallet, sign it, and download the signed transaction to your hot wallet to be broadcast to the mempool. This is all fine and dandy, but it suffers from a supply-chain choke point.

If your hardware wallet is using a nonstandard key derivation algorithm and you require the actual hardware to regenerate your keys, then if you don't have multiple identical hardware lying around, you're SOL. This is particularly bad if your hardware wallet is stored in a safe for two decades and the manufacturer doesn't exist any more.

Now this objection is a straw-man indeed because today they all use standard seed-phrase key derivation algorithms, so we should be plenty safe from this risk. But it calls into question the purpose of the hardware wallet in the first place. If you can use an airgapped computer (with sparrow) to sign your transactions by passing files between your offline and hot wallets with a thumb drive, then why do you need the hardware wallet in the first place?

The hardware wallet seems to me to be an additional layer of complexity disguised as a simplification. Perhaps you gain some warm feelings of security by knowing you have a hardware wallet and you don't need to keep a laptop lying around, or a bootable flashdrive with Qubes or Tails on it with an encrypted home directory for signing your cold wallet. But in my opinion, there is no benefit by adding complexity and specialized hardware.

I would accept a counterargument that its simpler for the less technical person to maintain a cold wallet with a dedicated piece of hardware.