The biggest reason I used them in production devices (and still use them at home) was the eMMC. Which made it well worth the price, even with the slow processor

The biggest reason I used them in production devices (and still use them at home) was the eMMC. Which made it well worth the price, even with the slow processor. We had to work with the Balena.io (formerly resin.io) team to get full hardware support on the BealgeBone Green Wireless (wifi drivers were the biggest hangup, iirc) a few years, but they were incredibly responsive and have done a fantastic job maintaining a stable distro for these boards. If you want a straightforward out-of-the-box experience, I highly recommend Balena.io.