Yes. Money is king, especially for high volume production. I found in my time at an embedded computer manufacturer that software, especially in house stuff, takes a back seat to everything else.

Multiply by 10 million units and you now save $100,000 by using that chipset. In reality, as I understand it, the price difference is often at least $0.10 between the dirt cheap chip and the one with a nice developer experience.

I kinda love the not-C compiler used for the $.03 Padauk microcontrollers. It's fun, but then again I'm an EE at heart and don't need a lot of abstraction on top of the hardware.