I think the ESP8266 in a way shows the opposite. ST, Atmel and Microchip maintain massive product catalogues so users can choose between 4MHz, 10MHz, 16MHz and

I think the ESP8266 in a way shows the opposite. ST, Atmel and Microchip maintain massive product catalogues so users can choose between 4MHz, 10MHz, 16MHz and 20MHz for their 8-bit, 8-pin microcontroller, and choose whether they want 1750 bytes of program memory or 3500 - but for the same price customers can get a 160 MHz, 32-bit microcontroller with built in wifi? Why would expressif pay the engineering costs and supply chain complexity costs to make worse products, when their flagship product is already a great price?