Economics of old computers?
The IIci was discontinued in February 1993. The accountants probably wrote them off as zero value in 1999, and anyone who chose to use one in a production environment would know that they were pushing their luck. The cost of a replacement power supply (new, from an Apple dealer) would have been half the cost of a new Mac. And, yes, I do know about the salvage market but many organisations *can't* buy off eBay.
So at the time that the Macs were put in a field, they had zero value to the owner.
Having worked with computer scrappers, I know the unwritten rules. I will give the scrapper loads of junk that s/he will consider unsalable and thus pay money for its disposal. I will also give the scrapper some useful stuff, which has no value to me. However, the scrapper will clean it up or remove the useful electronics, and resell it. I am obliged to give more useful stuff than unusable stuff.
As the person who gives away the scrap, I don't care about its value to others. It has no value to my organisation, and it is up to the scrapper to determine what is salable. I worry about managing desktop environments and the infrastructure that supports them, and similarly leave the scrapper to run his/her business.
Dumping kit outdoors is stupid from a business relationship perspective. The scrapper knows what can be sold, so if your organisation is scrapping kit, store it in the same way as if you wished to reuse it.