Partially yes. But I also understand where Deezle is coming from. There is a difference running Kodi with just plain estuary w/ a tiny video library vs my Aeon Nox with alot of eye candy and a massive library to boot. SBC's like Vero 4k+ (which actually does everything playerwise i need) and others are not significantly faster except probably the I/O which helps a bit then when I was using a Zotac MAG more then 10 years ago. Its very noticeable while using the actual GUI compared to the more expensive x86 NUC's. Just need the software/drivers to finally get with the times because HW that was released about 3.5 years ago is capable of it. And thats just the GUI not to mention other possibilities like Deezle wanting to use it as a pic viewer and his SBC getting choked up
I just see a bit more benefit these days upgrading back end hardware (network, NAS etc) rather than trying to load up everything on a front end device, as an example look at how well the Netflix app works on your average Smart TV, there's not a lot of front end processing power required, because all the heavy lifting is done at the back end.
I still like Kodi, it's great for what it is don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of other UI's out there that get by just fine on potato SoC's too, and running x86 as a HTPC has always felt like too much overkill to me.