Wonder if their sound actually improved, tried their flagship a few years ago, really didn't like it. The sound had rough edges and seemed overly aggressive...of course this depends on other components in the pipeline too, my CIEMs are...quirky, generally need a carefully adjusted EQ and don't mix well with many players.

Who buys a FAP for it's Bluetooth capabilities? Why put an ESS DAC in a DAP if you were going to use qualcomm's solution regarding snapdragon audio? Surprised it's got a 660 in it for the price. Android 13 literally just came out so 3 iterations behind isn't as bad as say HiBy, which is on 8 still. But with that said, iBasso is moving everything to 11. So is Sony. I have a feeling they kept using 10 because it cut down on cost because they used it in previous models already. Going to a new version of Android and changing it to bypass the built-in Android audio stack probably isn't a very easy thing to do and would add to the cost.

4 generations behind? Android 14 is out?

Doesn't really matter at this point. You should wait for a DAP with Snapdragon Sound support.