I got almost all of my wishes granted with RP2350

the price difference from usb to usb-c is less than 2 cents

You would be surprised at the amount of effort and success $0.01 represents at BigCo. Even when projected sales are in 6 figure range.

devil's advocate: cables for an average user is a different story. also not to forget the vast range of cables already existing out there.

also "proper" usb-c support is another can of worms, and maybe sticking to an older standard gives you freedom from all that.

You're confusing USB C and USB 3.1+. USB C is just the physical spec. You can design a cheap device that will only support USB 2 if you just connect ground, Vbus, D+ and D- and gasp add two resistors. It will work just as well as the micro-usb plug.

A USB-C port that only supports USB2 data and power only needs a few resistors across some pins to trigger legacy modes and disable high current/voltage operation. All the extra bits are the things that jack up the cost.

USB3 and altmodes require extra signal lines and tolerances in the cable.

High-voltage/current requires PD negotiation (over the CC pins AFAIK)

Data and power role swaps require muxes and dual-role controllers.

That's all the stuff that makes USB-C a pain in the ass, and it's all the sort of thing RPi Nanos don't support.

completely valid, but i would like to think the org is still designing for accessibility for newbies in mind.

like you said, the connector does not have to follow the standards. i have seen hdmi ports being used to carry pcie signal (not a good like but here is one such device https://pipci.jeffgeerling.com/cards_adapter/pce164p-no6-ver...) amgon other things. it is still non-standard behaviour.

Using an USB C port to carry an USB 2.0 signal is perfectly within the standards.