> They're hardly the up and coming underdog

Didn't mean they're an underdog as such, one can still be up the top and push hard. Many just don't.

> the things you mention are pretty much par for the course

As I said my background was Arduino, and the ARM offering from Atmel is a lot more expensive from what I can gather. I don't know too much about the others. Coming from the Arduino, the peripherals of most STM32s are something else.

edit: of course the price point is also a big factor in this, with the "Blue Pill" and similar dev boars in the <$2 delivered range.