Simplicity, no transmission. As to unsprung weight, designs like these have a ridiculous power density, so add only very little. Advanced suspensions are active anyway, so just part of the wheel robot.

I call it “installing software”.

There are tablets with docks available. E.g. I could use Pixel tablet with the hub for that, even with privacy-supporting GrapheneOS.

OpenBoot at Sun and Apple had a good thing going for a while. Too bad they didn’t release it as open source. In theory you could deliver architecture-independent drivers that ship as firmware on device.

Microsoft has no say what happens on my workstation, and never had any.