This was also the appeal, despite using binary blobs and some incredibly unfortunate design decisions (ethernet over USB for example), people loved these little things because they were cheap to a fault- intended to be almost disposable for education purposes. All can be forgiven with cost saving as the goal.

That has definitely been lost; they are still excellent education devices, but at the pricepoint I would have a pit in my stomach buying a couple hundred for students… assuming I could even get them of course.