I've been running an Odyssey from Seeed Studio for a while now, as an in-house dev server running SQL Server and IIS. It's the form factor you want, and it's been flawless (even though it's underpowered for what I'm doing with it.)
Why? Windows seems like a terrible option for minimal hardware?
Why? Unofficial ports work OK. Besides, imagine how efficient Windows on ARM software would be if it was developed on a Rpi
Because using poor/slow tools means we end up with better end results? In my experience using poor tools ends up with higher costs. I don't see how higher costs are going to result in better software in the end.