I'll take your word for it, but it sounds like a very different use-case than most use the pis for though. When you spend that much time with your device cost

I'll take your word for it, but it sounds like a very different use-case than most use the pis for though. When you spend that much time with your device cost isn't a factor (imho). But the pi is cheap enough that I can gift one if I know the end result will work well. And it is quite nice to just have one lying around for when you get an itch. Using netboot I have never had an issue with the pi. All reliability problems I've experienced can be tracked down bad power and SD-cards (note: I have not used any IO other than USB). Both are annoying enough to look for alternatives but both are also fixable (netbooting likely disqualifies it for many usecases though). Minimizing reads on the sd card usually means that they work at least several years untouched (in my experience, obviously limited sample size), which is likely good enough for many (a true read-only system might work even better). But when the audio streamer in the vacation cabin dies when you aren't around to fix it is still frustrating. So I'm in the moment of figuring out how to move the last of them to be netbooted. Which has some very nice side-effects as well, such as trivial remote system backup+restores. It also comes down to time. I know the pi and the pitfalls. Researching an alternative would take many hours and I'd still have to experience some of them. If the goal of the project isn't to learn a new sbc then that alone is a dealbreaker. That said, PocketBeagle seems to support wifi netboot (which neither the pi and pi zero w do). Might be able to find a project for that!