I picked up several Rpi 4 2GB for $20 each just before covid-19. At that price point they've been quite competitive for small homelab workloads.

The current RPi 5 makes no sense to me in any configuration, given its pricing.

Yeah, it's only competitive as a toy for under $35, anything beyond that you can get a cheap x86 with much better performance, a much compatible architecture and much more IOs.