Raspberry Pi's goal is computer science and coding education. They aren't going to make anything that isn't beginner friendly, and can't at least run a Linux GUI, have basic networking, support standard peripherals etc.

I don't understand how that's relevant. You can still release something smaller and less powerful, and still be accessible to beginners.

Why are you arguing about having standard peripherals? It doesn't let people learn about I/O.

I was in highschool and we were given given embedded hardware and were able to program it using assembly and uploading a program into it.

If you give students some very minimal embedded hardware with wifi and some terminal, they should be able to learn using that. Let them install things, maybe setup a 2D interface...

The RPi educational value is only enabled by I/O pins. I'm not sure that's really worthwhile.

The RPi is interesting because it's a powerful but cheap computer. I just wish there was much cheaper hardware to show people you can also do things with smaller stuff.

Reminds me of the (now defunct) CHIP for $9[1].

Have you checked out some of the alt pi boards like Orange Pi or Onion Omega2Plus?

1. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-wor...

There are a lot of tiny travel routers that run Linux. Mostly little MIPS boards inside.

Why do you feel that a hardware product being too powerful is a problem?

Because it also means increased power consumption. If you're trying to run something off battery or solar, not using hardware that's more powerful than you actually need can be necessary for the project to be viable.