Just to clarify, I don't mean that kids are not programming or making games in whatever form, just that they might not care to do so on a frozen-in-time TI calc

Just to clarify, I don't mean that kids are not programming or making games in whatever form, just that they might not care to do so on a frozen-in-time TI calculator as much as used to be the case, so the "silver lining" of an unnecessarily expensive TI calculator being a child's first programming environment might not really exist anymore. As you say, kids have many other options today.