I feel like $800 for an i3/8gb machine is on the expensive side. Given that it is probably the best option to run OSX smoothly, maybe, it's worth it.
I’m eyeing the i5 though, with upgradeable ram and egpu / fast storage through tb3 that one could last me a decade.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Two minutes of searching and I found a box with a better CPU, 16 GiB of RAM, 512 GiB of flash, and 1 TiB of HDD for a slightly lower price. The Apple Tax is real, at least for their desktops.
(I have never seen the point of these tiny PCs. You can throw a desktop in a corner where you'll never have to see it. If I'm allowed to buy a normal case, I'm sure I could trounce that Mac for about $400.)
The Mac Mini is indeed expensive for its specs, but it's also extremely small for those specs: desktop components in a sub-mini-ITX form factor. If you wanted to compare it to similar PCs, you're looking at the custom offerings from Zotac, etc. which also command a high premium.