I totally understand where you're coming from and would put myself in a similar position. The creator of the project highlighted faster hardware prototyping as the major feature, which is what I was responding to.
To be fair, without seeing the software, it's hard to know how much easier a project would be as a whole. But just to take that soap dispenser example, there's already some shortcuts taken - using a glue gun, Duplo and a perfectly shaped arm on a motor. If you had that, a Raspberry Pi and a couple of "ready to go" HATs from reputable suppliers who provide code examples, I don't think there would be a huge difference.
To be fair, without seeing the software, it's hard to know how much easier a project would be as a whole. But just to take that soap dispenser example, there's already some shortcuts taken - using a glue gun, Duplo and a perfectly shaped arm on a motor. If you had that, a Raspberry Pi and a couple of "ready to go" HATs from reputable suppliers who provide code examples, I don't think there would be a huge difference.