Yeah but usually what happens is that no new development of that sort occurs during the (intentionally limited by cheaped-out hardware design) lifetime of the a

Yeah but usually what happens is that no new development of that sort occurs during the (intentionally limited by cheaped-out hardware design) lifetime of the appliance. If they do push any updates, they'll either be to fix security problems (only if you're lucky enough that they get fixed at all), or they'll push some horrible software feature users didn't ask for which worsens their experience vs how it operated when purchased and brings new bugs. Appliance manufacturers are terrible at firmware/software. You get all the downsides and none of the upsides.