atrocious ??, maybe on an 8 bit 8mhz device you can go faster if you write optimised assembly code but this is a 240Mhz+480Mhz device it's a different world....
If you're going to use something that's basically a late-90s desktop and develop on the basis that you can afford to burn cycles, you might as well use a proper RTOS and enjoy all the affordances that come with it.
Their codebase would improve immensely if they used a more powerful chip to run Linux and Python instead.
If newer hardware makes it cheaper and easier to make cool shit while maintaining the price point and power budgets of previous generations, who gives a shit?
This new stuff makes tinkering with hardware way more accessible than before and that is a good thing for everybody.
Arduino is excellent for what it was originally designed for - an easy, accessible platform for artists and non-engineers to experiment and prototype. Arduino are now reaching well beyond that market and targeting more serious applications, so we are entirely right to question whether a) Arduino's design trade-offs are acceptable in mass-market products and b) whether we really want to lower barriers to entry in this area.
Personally, I think the answers are a) no and b) absolutely not. If you need the hand-holding that Arduino offers, you have absolutely no right to ask a user to plug your widget into their network. Engineers are in a position of trust and we have a moral obligation to treat that position with absolute seriousness.