Electronics is full of "It's not a bug, it's a feature"-type inventions.

* Inductors stop functioning at high current due to core saturation? Add a control winding to the core, now you can make a magnetic switch or amplifier by driving the core in and out of saturation.

* Diodes burn out and become a short circuit after taking too much power? Put them in a chip as factory one-time programmable fuses.

* Diodes create a large current spike before it turns off due to reverse recovery? Use that spike to make a pulse generator, special Step Recovery Diode can generate picosecond pulses.

* Noise from Zener voltage references is just too strong? Make a standard noise source to test radio receivers.

* Your electrolytic capacitors are really crappy and have high resistance? Use them as free resistive dampers to suppress LC resonance and parasitic oscillations in power supplies. (Yes, replacing crappy capacitors with good low-ESR ones can actually destabilize some power supplies)... #electronics