That's an interesting take!

It would be neat if it was easier to broadcast the experience of playing the game to more folks like how playing back a song recorded from a groovebox doesn't require much more than a device with speakers than can play an audio file.

Absolutely true, but typing on a screen is a royal pain in many contexts. I like this design because it looks like a moderately rugged industrial computer that's not a clamshell and has a useful keyboard (I grew up with things like ZX Spectrums so this isn't the negative for me that it is for many others).

It is indeed quite limited, but I like terminal environments and (again) grew up with very constrained menu-driven software, so this is less of an toy than a very customizable tool; I'm not really interested in the game console emulation. One that can fit in a cargo pocket and is surprisingly affordable. The lack of a touchscreen or camera are pluses for me.