You’re not wrong, but the point of this exercise seems to be to produce an arduino uno clone in dip package the same size as the chip on the original arduino.

You’re not wrong, but the point of this exercise seems to be to produce an arduino uno clone in dip package the same size as the chip on the original arduino. They aren’t trying to create something better or more capable, they are just making a riff/tribute of what is almost certainly the worlds most popular embedded learning tool.