To be clear when I wrote about my preferences above it was from a perspective of what I'd like to have and to use myself. I absolutely agree with you that many of these are great for educational purposes, so I absolutely think it's great some people are doing these too. That said, for that purpose I'd have stuck with something a more direct analog to one of the existing 8-bit machines myself. But it's not my projects so he is of course entirely free to make it however he prefers.