a lot of people buy rpis because they are the only reasonable option for connectivity with power. I'm not sure what other devices you can get that have gpio and mipi connectivity with the ability to (potentially) run vlms and llms on them.

I daresay they could charge more than a comparably specced computer (if they don't already) and they would still be a viable purchase.

Surely with this hat you don't have any access to any GPIO?

Unless i'm missing something - which is where i'm like why not just buy a NUC with similiar RAM for far less.