But I also agree that the Uno derivatives with the CH340 are not "crap". It is kind of cool that you can change the firmware of the ATmega16U2 on the official Uno, but probably only 0.001% of the Arduino users ever do that. The derivative makers use the CH340 instead of the ATmega16U2 because it is a lot cheaper and it works as well (except for the difficulty finding the driver) for the purpose of acting as a USB to TTL serial adapter.