I've been teaching using these for the last 9 months, using them for an introductory and tactile programming environment (being able to easily switch from block

I've been teaching using these for the last 9 months, using them for an introductory and tactile programming environment (being able to easily switch from block code to Python when they get the concepts is great), learning about how computers use a variety of external sensors, introducing some of the structure of wireless networking, congestion and attenuation and more. And that's without using any of the pins to hook up external gear. My kids have just started hooking up continuous servos and creating remote control buggies with them, learning about protocols in the meantime. They're probably one of the best pieces of kit I've used in 13 years of teaching (and cheap to boot). But feel free to keep rubbishing them, that's your prerogative :)