Yes, I understand the difference between a controller (which admittedly can run on very low-end hardware) and hashing power. My point is, if you were using a $35 piece of hardware to control a nuclear reactor (yes, I'm exaggerating a bit to make a point), and the reactor - or rather the entire energy grid - were at risk of meltdown without a very minor, known-working hardware upgrade (compared to the reactor) for the controller to support the software fix, would you be wasting time trying to figure out how to somehow re-architect the software to run on the old hardware just to save a couple of bucks?

Do you really think that forcing/encouraging that minimal upgrade would disrupt the current (non-existent) "balance of power" on the network?

No, I don't think that's comparing apples to oranges. If anything, I think the current mining situation is even more ridiculous given the fact that (assuming the network survives), all of the current hashing power mining behind those cheap controllers is going to become worthless in a year (or less) anyway.

Go ahead and spin your wheels trying to save a small subset of current mining hardware while you watch the network crash as all those ignorant miners  who purchased pi-controlled ASICs point their hashing power at "benevolent" centralized pools who would NEVER do anything harmful (because the miners don't know better and/or they can't run something better on their controllers). Don't complain that we didn't have enough time/resources to fix the problem. Talk about missing the forest for the trees...