I too, am tired of giving that reply - I don't know why the issue must be continually raised on every Pi article; it's a little patronizing ("Oh, those poor Pi users don't know any better"), and that grates when you have researched and ended up with the Pi as the best-fit.
Both things are true - yes the Pi is not the most robust SBC on the market, but the Pi also offers the best value for money hobbyists and tinkerers. You (generalized) and I have completely different priorities and we will accept very different trade-offs: price is important to me - reliability, not as much. I would rather drop $40 on an SBC that may or may not kill my $5-$15 SD card in the next few months than spend >$100 on a rock-solid eMMC-/CF-based one. Most of Pi users are hobbyists who are not running critical code, if it fails they will fix it next weekend. Maybe.
If the pros fail to understand that the needs of hobbyists are different, then this back-and-forth will never cease.
I'm always amused and simultaneously annoyed by those ads about Raspberry Pi "killers" that are X amount faster or whatever, but they never get around to pointing out the price factor. They nearly always start at double the price. I'd only expect them to outperform the Raspberry Pi if they are double the price.
The Raspberry Pi is what it is, and is in every way brilliant for it. If you want X amount faster, you pay for that. That's not a Raspberry Pi killer. It's a different category altogether. Those SBCs cost more, and therefore you get more. If you need that, Raspberry Pi isn't what you need. But if you are within the group that Raspberry Pi caters to, it's hard to find better.
It's like saying the new electric Harley Davidson motorcycle is an e-bike killer. Of course it's faster and more powerful and has more this and that more features. It costs more. It's just not the same thing.
PS: The new Rpi 4 with lots of RAM is certainly getting there. I actually use one as my desktop even though I have far more powerful equipment in my studio.
Both things are true - yes the Pi is not the most robust SBC on the market, but the Pi also offers the best value for money hobbyists and tinkerers. You (generalized) and I have completely different priorities and we will accept very different trade-offs: price is important to me - reliability, not as much. I would rather drop $40 on an SBC that may or may not kill my $5-$15 SD card in the next few months than spend >$100 on a rock-solid eMMC-/CF-based one. Most of Pi users are hobbyists who are not running critical code, if it fails they will fix it next weekend. Maybe.
If the pros fail to understand that the needs of hobbyists are different, then this back-and-forth will never cease.