Except the RPi competition isn't better, only cheaper, because it has terrible software; and without a big community, no support?

Having a SATA or M2 is something what I would consider definitely better, however software is usually garbage stuck on one specific Linux Kernel and that's the reason why better hardware will never catch on.

Totally depends on what “better” means to you and your use case.

what do you mean "terrible software", as long as they have linux kernel for it, i don't see how it's more terrible than raspberry

Terrible as in you will be stuck in the pretty much only kernel image that runs on it without being able to update things beyond the kernel

If you stick to RockChip stuff, it's not bad.