I had the same experience as the OP. My Mac Mini was getting old, and the fan was making a worrisome noise. I wasn't going to buy the "latest" Mini, since it is very stale, hard to upgrade and expensive for what it is. Funnily enough I was already running Windows on that Mini anyway, so my next computer didn't have to be a Mac. But I did enjoy the small footprint, and I have to say that the Mac is probably the easiest hardware to run Windows on. The drivers have been tested and everything just works.

I ended up with the latest "Skull Canyon" NUC as well. Even though it is thinner than my old Mini, its footprint on my desk is about the same, it's just less square. I'm not a fan of the color or the design; it seems marketed at teenage gamerzzz, not at the boring middle aged guy who prefers a minimalist Scandinavian style. But that's not very important. I did have to buy the SSD and the RAM separately, I had to install Windows myself (so that's no better than buying a Mini to run Windows on), and I did have to hunt for a couple of drivers. I don't know why they don't sell a fully configured machine.

Its fan is not as quiet as the Mini, and it has some weird transient behavior when it wakes up from hibernation. It didn't come cheap (I maxed pretty much every spec though). It is very fast, it does the job competently, but I don't Love it like I Loved the Mini. Sad that Apple has abandoned this cute nifty little machine.