I don’t quite understand the criticism. It’s not gonna be top of the line, but it’s more than enough to replace my dying laptop from 2015 that I pretty much only ever use like a desktop anyway. And I can save myself the time and effort of picking parts, building, and dealing with shit not working as expected.
Steam deck hasn’t sold that many devices compared to PlayStation, switch, or xbox. Wildly successful for what it is? Yes. Was it ever going to become a significant % of all gaming consoles? No.