Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You
get fewer components,
lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, increased
flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how is this a bad
thing?
I question the over head ... with all the design software closed source
I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware product.
I know no microcontrollers that hasn't unix/linux tools, nor one who
doesn't is documented - programming algorithm, asm and like.