That is a power hog, compared to say an STM32L4 with, per spec, ~250 nA deep sleep w/ RTC & some RAM (to make it at least somewhat comparable to the ESP) and 50

That is a power hog, compared to say an STM32L4 with, per spec, ~250 nA deep sleep w/ RTC & some RAM (to make it at least somewhat comparable to the ESP) and 50uA/MHz dynamic run mode. Also you shouldn't just take steady state values. I've had various ESP's on a power analyzer. They take a bit more (like 30mA for many msec? iirc) for a while during wake up (w/ wifi off) before the consumption drops to the final value. For example some of that goes into uncontrolled/undocumented oscillations on some pins (for up to 100ms?), thought that is probably a negligible part. ESP's are only popular because they're the cheapest/easiest option with WiFi. At least that's why I use them...