Its the classic Apple business strategy: cripple the cheaper model in some way to make the more expensive lines more desireable.

They've been doing this since the first range of Macbooks in 2006 where a few hundred extra $$$ for you a DVD burner and then a few more for a (admittedly sexy) black paint job.

Normally its actually not a problem as you can at least say the cheaper models are still better than the competition, like the 9th gen iPad vs $300 Chromebooks and Windows machines.

But this year they went too far with a 'fisher price' color range, a price increase of way too much and that awful Pencil dongle.

Honestly if I still sold Apple productrs for a living I'd still be pushing the 9th gen and recommend buying a $30 USB-C Pencil off Amazon.