You make a lot of sense except the part about price. Despite you being right that MSRP represents a great value for the advantages, the actual cost is way out of whack for what you get with a Pi, just due to the fact that they've been in short supply and thus mediated by 'scalpers' for 3+ years now.
I can still see how for some people it is still worth it, because, say an HP thin client decidedly isn't a good substitute if you want to, say, fit it in an outlet box and run off 5v USB power. For anything where you're not using the GPIO/"hats"/whatever though, unless size is a big concern, I would use a small older computer over a Pi.
If I am doing a project with a 'hardware' component tomorrow though, I agree with you, I'd (grudgingly) overpay for a Pi rather than those other things, because, of all platforms with interface GPIO pins that you can use to do cool stuff, the Pi is the one most likely to have "support" out there -- meaning either someone else has already made a tool to do some of the things I want, or someone else has run into the problems I'll run into and prompted a discussion about how to fix it.
I can still see how for some people it is still worth it, because, say an HP thin client decidedly isn't a good substitute if you want to, say, fit it in an outlet box and run off 5v USB power. For anything where you're not using the GPIO/"hats"/whatever though, unless size is a big concern, I would use a small older computer over a Pi.
If I am doing a project with a 'hardware' component tomorrow though, I agree with you, I'd (grudgingly) overpay for a Pi rather than those other things, because, of all platforms with interface GPIO pins that you can use to do cool stuff, the Pi is the one most likely to have "support" out there -- meaning either someone else has already made a tool to do some of the things I want, or someone else has run into the problems I'll run into and prompted a discussion about how to fix it.