The reasons for me to use this processor are in no particular order:
- Documentation is pretty good, as well as examples
- Support from the mantainer is top notch. I've been working with him this week in getting to execute code from an SPI flash on my dev kit by changing the bootloader. After a few misses and some bugs we found, it's working.
- Performance wise... we'll see... very early days still, but if I can get an audio signal ADC'd and DAC'd, that will be a good start.
With the above in mind, I've felt that other implementations are more "academic" oriented, if that makes sense, in terms of creating big constructs but in a more complex way, aimed at FPGA developers rather than µC users/developers. It's fun to add a new peripheral to your micro, I love that flexibility, but after that's done some of us would want to just use the construct, flash a binary, debug the code, and be done with the project until the next one comes along.
The above is my opinion, based on observation. I'm not belittling the work other groups have done, I'm a big fan of open source, but at times it's very hard to get through the initial barrier in new projects.
Cheers,
Alberto