For me, it's getting hard to consider anything other than Pi for these kinds of tasks. Yes, I could install an ancient, low-spec machine, but it'd use more power and be more bother.
Biggest reason this is annoying is only one onboard ethernet.
Now that you can boot a Pi from USB, I could see this point of view. I’ve had enough SDs die on me in a Pi that I wouldn’t trust an SD driven Pi for anything where I’d need to rely on it for remote access. I wish there was something in between Pi and Atom for this use case.
Biggest reason this is annoying is only one onboard ethernet.