> The problem is the use of Docker as a lowest common denominator, or perhaps more accurately lowest common effort, approach to distributing software to end users.
Shipping physical machines probably is even lower than that though. Or even the VMs.
> One of the great sins of Docker is having normalized running software as root.
I am not as familiar with Docker practices, but unfortunately, AFAICT, people did that frequently on regular systems as well, just to not bother with permissions. (Edit: now I recalled people also not following the FHS and storing things in the root directory inside Docker images, but sometimes it was/is similar without containers as well, and inside a container it does not clutter the host system, at least).
> Having "pi" in the name of a software product is a big red flag in my mind, it immediately makes me think "they will not have documented how to run this on a shared device."
This approach is similar to shipping physical machines. Or at least maintaining odd legacy software on a dedicated machine.
I think a rather pessimistic view is that proper packaging switched to Docker or single-purpose machines, but an optimistic one is that those are the unnecessary VMs and larger single-purpose machines that were replaced by Docker and RPi. Maybe there is a little of both going on.