I am by no means a major creator in any form but I really like it. I like the sound of the butterfly keyboard, I like how light and small it is, I like the speakers and screen. I just love it. The intel core’s are not fantastic no and it does slow down, and yes I am constantly worried the heat will eventually be the demise of my logic board but I really would buy it again. (I got this one for $100). I use it more than my M1. I use tableau and excel pretty well on it. The battery is not horrible, especially since my M1 battery really does not last 6 hours or over anymore(idk what happened to it). This little machine was fantastic for the time. If it came out again with Apple silicon I would buy 10.
I love my 2017 12 inch also. It’s been totally problem free…just needed a new battery after 5 years. For travel and basic use it’s incredible. Apple just has to reissue the body of it with modern internals. It will sell like crazy.