@Gavin I was reading about that, being able to use it on Arduino etc, but I don't see the point when the board shown above is the official one that was designed from the ground-up to run it. The hardware is Open Source hardware, just like the software is open source, so buying the official board to learn on just makes perfect sense to me. If I were to start making successfull use of it in various products, I'd be able to take whatever components I need and just incorporate them into my own designs, so it's not as if the price of the official board will have any bearing on that.
Basically, I see the purchase of the official board as a sensible one-off move so I have the comfort of knowing that any problems I come-up against while learning it, are down to me, and not some hardware-based problem. Not only that, I like to support the people who brought the project to life, so even if I only ever buy that one official board, I've supported their time and effort in bringing the platform to us.
Regards the C/Python thing, I hear you, but I've been looking into various languages and trying a little of each, reading/watching opinions etc, and I really like Python cause it feels more human-readable and like there is less work to do in order to do the same thing, so less chance of errors and easier to learn. I'm not saying it is easier to learn or that it is less prone to errors, but it looks/feels that way to me.
What's cool about MicroPython is that you're programming a language that's easy to digest, and is getting run "bare-metal" on a piece of hardware that is so simple even a beginner could roll their own hardware with just a few components and a hot-air solder station!
So it's easy to build, easy to program, and very fast (cause unlike standard Python, it runs bare-metal). Also, unlike on a Raspberry Pi, there's no OS to get in the way and/or slow things down or complicate things. You just switch it on, and you have bare-metal Python 
There's nothing other than a persons own programming skills stopping them from developing their very own standalone computer with custom designed video and sound drivers etc. Just switch it on and off you go, bare-metal performance would come of your MicroPython programming skills!
Getting carried away there, but the point I'm making is it's true, you can do that. All of that said, for all I know, I could get into it and suddenly decide, nah, I'd rather learn C or whatever 