When you wnat to gift something to the kid, you don't know how carefully they might use something. Sure, I could have given them the R36S but I am not sure if they are ready for it because it needs care.
The other thing is simple enough UI that they can atleast start to learn to save and load games. Can you imagine giving a little child an R36S with retroarch hand trying to tell them what different keys you have to press to save and sometimes A is confirm while other times B is confirm. They will bite you.
You can also be a complete dick like my ex and could give the console to a child but say, if you don't break it, I will give you a better one, knowing fully well that they WILL break it just so you can make the child feel like it's their fault that the world is mean to them and they grow up with low self-esteem.
I guess ultimately it comes down to that line actually, I know they will break it, so why not give them something cheap to see how they actually handle it.
I gave them the older cheaper console that you couln'dt add games and only had horrible hacks and not the actual NES games so it was just a horrible experience from my point of view. They had a lot of fun but it stopped working only a few months later.