Pretty sure the 4 usb ports and ethernet were all being fed from one root usb controller port via a hub and usb ethernet bridge. You can easily add what they removed if you need it, or pay the $10 extra for the bigger board.
Seems like a good fit for something like a 3d-printer, for which the pizero was a bit slow.
But I will always miss wired ethernet.
another complaint of the pizero is the mini-hdmi, i dont own a single one of these cables, i think you're right in that the pizero cpu is much slower
It's just not practical to put a full size HDMI socket on a tiny board like that.
Ooh, that's a really good point. I have a Pi2 running Klipper and Octoprint driving my printer, this would be a good upgrade...