By "depreciate quickly" we in fact mean "become worthless instantly." I have various cases from the era where the power supply still went in the top rear corner rather than the bottom, and at this point they're only of any interest as the foundation of a truly retro PC build for ironic purposes, or as a butt-to-ground adapter. You can't even give the fuckers away because any computer nerds who would theoretically be interested in them already have a basement full of the damn things themselves.

So I would not lose too much sleep over hacking out a drive cage if it's never going to be used. OP may even find that it's riveted into place, in which case a few strategic drillings is all it'll take to entice it to fall off.