You are coming from the point of view of a GEEK, so I can understand you, however the reality is it's impossible to have the highest spec here.
First put aside the 802.11be, not only the price will be crazy expensive (manufacturer won't produce something that's very few people willing to pay for), the problem is the development isn't there yet. KISS and rebrand a BPI-R4? The BPI-R4 is still far from having full official support, so this can't be a good choice.
No one will pay for lesser device just because of OpenWrt branding? YES & NO, not everyone can do the same flashing on those "device from China", the hardware revision is really problematic, I read and speak Chinese, I lived in HK before, I've seen those China based OpenWrt capable devices and people do have issues flashing from time-to-time. Something like GL-INET with supported platform becomes more popular because they won't have the trouble of those problem, so I think for those who don't want to get too much trouble with flashing OpenWrt might be benefited by the OpenWrt ONE.
I don't know if there will be more future version, I hope this OpenWrt ONE can be a starting point and get more better platform for users.
The team should be applauded for the efforts on the One. People think it's easy having an idea and getting it produced.
There's nothing to stop the team in say late 2025 designing an OpenWRT Two around some form of Wifi 7. Not only will costs for chips be lower but I don't know what it is but there's a pretty big market segment for people who will pay extortionate amounts of money for hardware. The moment Asus stuck out its Wifi 7 gear you had people pre ordering at $800...
Not joking go on the Amazon Eero reddit and see multiple posts like "Just got 3 Eero Max 7's for $1500 couldn't resist". All you have to do is give a sample to some respected tech YouTuber and tell them to really drive home the FOSS aspect and people will pay $400 easy.
