I can sympathize with your mechanic. I’m good at breaking parts that weren’t broken when I replace another part. I had a mechanic accidentally hit the radiator and caused a leak when he was replacing a water pump. He took the radiator to a shop and had it repaired with no charge to me. His rates were always so reasonable that I offered to pay the charge or at least part of it, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The year before, this same mechanic spent half an hour on the telephone with me when I was in graduate school and had a problem when we were ready to come home during a break. He told me how to get it running, but said not to turn it off for the 120 mile trip and stop at his garage when we hit town and he would take us home. He wouldn’t take anything for his time on the telephone.
Removing interior door panels always involves some risk on breaking parts. I have never removed a door panel without having to make a trip to a parts store for more plastic clips. Removing the plastic trim panel to replace the radio on the 1978 Oldsmobile I used to own put me in a real state of panic. The Oldsmobile was 16 years old at the time ( the same age as your Honda). Age, summer heat and sunlight makes plastic brittle. If I were a mechanic, I think I would much rather work on late model cars than older cars where the plastic parts become brittle and the nuts and bolts are hard to remove because of the rust. I’ve had to fix my old cars out of financial necessity and, for me, it wasn’t much fun.