The ESP32 never ceases to impress me. They're ridiculously cheap and low power, and the fact that they're able to emulate a PC operating system just makes them even cooler.
ESP32 doesn’t impress me by the things you said. The most impressive thing about ESP32 is the ESP-IDF and the amount of effort Espressif has put in to make it accessible, developed in the public and amazing progress over the years. Compare that to TI or ST, they look like they’re stuck with management issues and not getting out of the rut. It boggles my mind that HALs are still developed in isolation and not open source. WTF are these companies thinking. Microchip PIC platform is another dumpster fire.
Espressif has excellent good low-level documentation and a ton of code on Github[2]. I haven't built a system up from code, but they seem as open as any microcontroller supplier without having to buy into an NDA.
[1] https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/hands-on-the-risc-v-esp32-c3...