Not saying this to disagree with you, but there are companies manufacturing new cartridge copies of old NES/SNES (probably GB but I never checked) games for a fraction of some of the more expensive games. A friend of a friend of mine got a copy of Chrono Trigger for SNES from aliexpress. There are a few "tells" to know it's a copy (one of which is that it looks too new!), but it plays perfectly in his SNES. Your point still stands, but I just thought this was interesting that this market exists.
That's more understandable, at least to my retrogaming enthusiast eyes. A reproduction cart is trying to look like the original cart and provide the sense of physical connection to the work[0] that ROMs just don't give you. The Analogue Pocket does not really resemble the devices it emulates, and while it can provide a means to play original carts, one can get original devices for the same or less cost that will also do so and be more authentic.
Which is not to say there's no reason to own an Analog Pocket, it's a set of tradeoffs. I just personally find those trade offs make very little sense.
[0] by which I mean the game, taken as a piece of artistic expression
