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I will put out a general warning about the MECOOL M8S Pro Plus again - it seems it is a bit of a lottery still if you are going to get one with properly working eMMC flash storage.
In fact I personally would avoid that particular MECOOL model all together because there are still users over on the Freaktab website having issues with newly shipped M8S Pro+ devices.
All the other MECOOL's do not seem to have such eMMC flash problems.
Branded boxes like the MINIX U1 / U9 and ODROID C2 have proper heat sinks, that will very likely give you greater reliability long term. The MINIX's for example run 20-30 degrees C cooler than 99% of AMLogic devices. If you do not need HDR, the U1 would be a great pickup with it's excellent A2 lite Wireless remote.
The safely Overclocked ODROID C2 (1.752GHz) with eMMC flash is the fastest device I've tested in the AMLogic arsenal - as such it's my day to day LE box. You need to use eMMC storage for speed.
I even run power for it from a USB port on my TV, that is all it needs. You need the USB > barrel pin type power supply cable, although a micro USB cable will do the job as well.
The C2 can use self programmable Lirc for IR remotes. Wireless remote are better tho
Also added to the C2 is a $4 CSR v4.0 Bluetooth USB dongle and a $10 Xiaomi Mi Box BT remote.
That turns it into nice snappy setup, with great response - even when using Aeon Nox.
AML S912 devices are nice and snappy setups as well. Downside with the extra SoC cores, they can run a bit Hot with generic heatsinks.I've no experience flashing generic Android boxes with LE to internal eMMC memory.
This is the easier, more flexible setup for LE Kodi running from eMMC IMHO:
[HOWTO] Boot from SD card, use internal memory for data
In the end it really depends on how much you want to spend vs reliability and speed of the device.
thanks for the detailed response, mate... 
looks like the odroid c2 is at the top of my list...