I hear you. I’ve thought about the value proposition and I’ve considered repurposing a few of the many older desktops I have on shelves out in my garage. There’s no question that it costs more (up front) to have several single (or sometimes dual) purpose machines. The biggest problem with the “1 big server” approach is that it puts all my eggs in one basket. If my Hass.io fails, my Emby Server will probably experience some down time while I fix it. If my NextCloud fails, it could take out my personal web server, etc. I don’t have the resources to build a big server cluster or a second/redundant system, and even if I did, I don’t want a jet engine in my office with me. Multiple Raspberry Pis and/or multiple Odroid HC1s/2s take up a LOT less space, generate zero noise, and use less electricity (not that the savings adds up to much) plus there’s a lot of good info/resources out there in case I decide to cluster some RasPis.