Yeah the Pi is way too expensive. NUCs are a better deal (and roughly the same price), and x86 is obviously going to smoke ARM in certain workloads (e.g. running a VPN server that has to encrypt/decrypt all traffic).

The concept of the Raspberry Pi is great, but the price point was never where it needed to be. Even when you could get one for around MSRP, doing anything with it was so much added cost. Yeah $35 for a little computer is great, but you needed a power supply, case, microSD card, and whatever hats (the hats have always been overpriced IMO).