Of course those aren't the prettiest laptops or the longest lasting. There is not a whole lot of interest or money (i image) in barebone laptops. Also laptops don’t really have many standards like desktops (storage, ram, and cpu/gpu sort of). Manufactures don't really have an incentive to do it unless it is a large order from a reseller.
They are quite limited with variety. If you wanted something specific like longer battery life or super portable (ultrabook) then I would say buy used off of eBay. Unless you know someone or a company dumping some. Same thing with "Gaming" laptops or workstations. If you have a specific use case, your work is buying it, or you can(or need to have) buy something new.
You can get some of the Thinkpad (T440s, T4302, T420s, etc) or the Latitudes (E7270, E7470, etc) for a nice discount depending on what you are looking for.
A good portion of those laptops are off lease so they are still in decent condition.