The fact that you can run just about any linux distro is also nice when compared to ARM hardware.
You're always dependent on someone building a bespoke Linux image for your particular device into perpetuity, which rarely happens.
Most of those boards can run mainline Linux, but certain features and integrations only exist in external forks that weren't put into vanilla Linux.
The end result is either that you're still dependent on someone maintaining bespoke Linux kernel forks in perpetuity, or you ship relatively up-to-date kernels that lack features, drivers, etc that only exist in the forks.