If you're going down the route of buying a board why should you worry about the complexity of putting it all together?
RP2040 is harder because it won't even boot until you add flash. Other chips however will boot with just Vcc and Gnd (aka + and - power applied).
That's my point. Many many chips are actually really easy to build a board around. But not RP2040.
If you're going down the route of buying a board why should you worry about the complexity of putting it all together?