I only close a game before sleep mode if I encounter issues when resuming. I find it’s rare and generally title specific, and mostly while running something via emulation.

Aside from having to run the ribbon over the plate cover I would say I think this design is more streamlined to work on. The new screws are certainly an improvement over the old ones. The LCD version also had thermal pads attached to the underside of the plate that would pick up dust and things if you weren’t careful. The OLED plate is bare.

If it’s showing anything on the display when powering it on it is not bricked. More likely that you corrupted the OS. As you said, you will prolly need to reinstall.

Luckily, if you have an enclosure to throw the disk in, you should be able to recover the /home/ folder and retain most of your user profile settings. If no enclosure, there may be a way to enable SSH outside of the OS and you can use something like WinSCP or Filezilla to recover your data.