Ya that chip is really weird. Each core is so minimal that people struggle to understand how to use the chip. I think something less "fanatic minimalism" would be better but hey that's just me.

It's not really "fanatic". The minimalism has a purpose: less transistors so less power, smaller size and cheaper. The previous designs from Moore focused on speed at the time when MIPS was what people were looking for (e.g. the F21 [1])

I can see this chip being used instead of "system on chip" (SoC) designs. Namely GA144 + a general purpose processor (if the "business logic" of the application is too large/complicated for a GA144).

When you look at typical ARM-based SoCs, a lot of the integrated controllers are just bit-banging stuff from and to peripherals. But this is all carved in silicon, and to maximize flexibility you have a lot of additional complexity (both for the chip and the programmer) for configuration. Plus, because those chips are often used in mobile computing, you have a lot of complexity to power up and down unused parts.

It seems to me that a GA144 or two, you have more flexibility (because it's all software) and low-power usage (due to its design). What this chip probably needs is libraries to talk to common peripherals (I2C, SPI, SSC, SD card controlers, LCD controlers, flash controllers...).

[1] https://www.ultratechnology.com/chips.htm