However, NUC form factor is more lively than ever before. Maybe someone can grab the language and run for something? Miktrotik guys come into my mind.
I have BeeLink S12 Pro, which I post this comment from, and I like it. However I/O wise, it's not the fastest (x1 NVMe + 2.5" SATA SSD). I also have a GMKTec G3, which has a x2 NVMe and M.2 SATA Slot. I have recently seen a "Minix Z100" fanless, which has x4 NVMe but no SATA, however it has 2.5gbE. Lastly, my parents are using a similar N95 system on Windows 11, and it works pretty nicely for them. All of these systems support 32GB of single channel RAM, but they're plenty fast for simple jobs or simple desktop systems which you won't try to conquer the world.
If you have no power/heat/noise/money upper limit, you can get them in more packed configurations, but that's not what I need, actually.
Their firmware is crap quality, and their bugs are just absolutely astoundingly bad.
At one job we literally had to fix their firmware for them after several months of back-and-forth, engineers spotted the absurdly obvious bug in minutes of seeing their code.