The power budget isn't the only reason you go for an MCU. Often you're doing it for the real-time guarantees or the hardware qualification (e.g. for application

The power budget isn't the only reason you go for an MCU. Often you're doing it for the real-time guarantees or the hardware qualification (e.g. for applications where you need something with a safety rating). That said, yes... TCP/IP based networking in the traditional embedded world isn't comparatively pleasant.