I haven't been in school for ten years, but if I recall correctly the stipulation was not "it cannot connect to the internet and/or store notes". It was, invariably, some version of "it must start with 'TI-' and be followed by one of these accepted integers".

So, whether it was a result of TI's lobbying or whatever else, the fact was and I assume still is that competing w/TI with a similarly capable, reasonably priced device is impossible because such a device cant pretend to be a TI-84, or whatever. Simply having the same capabilities and restrictions is not enough.