That is rarely a viable option for a product in series production - any change will need re-validation, maybe different cabling, mounting holes etc. And of course software changes. Then you have to deal with different variants in the field, different software updated for different versions, issues for field service replacement etc. The initial cost of the module can be negligible compared to the long-term cost of a bad decision.
Beagleboard and Raspi are established enough to have reasonable chance of being there long-term in sufficiently similar form. anything pitched as a bargain-basement product will inevitably have questionable longevity as the manufacturer cares more about price than continuity of supply or compatibility.
I got my first OPi PC in 2015, it's well built, stable, rock solid and still available in 2018, I got my first RasPi in 2012 and it's no longer available and I've had to go thru 5 new versions or so, most of which are no longer available. The newer rpi 3s are not fully compatible with previous ones, and the wifi and BT does not work well/reliably. The power supply circiut has always been a disaster (fixed in rpi3). Ethernet and USB I/O througput is another disaster. Etc, etc. The RasPi was first but is easily the worse af all these sbcs imho.
Read udp from ethernet, create an image with text, display thru hdmi, play some audio, all these things can be done with off-the-shelf Linux software very easlily and be portable, only the led matrix is somewhat more tricky and non standard but even that can be portable if reduced to an app to send/receive via i2c or serial or spi.
If "orange pi inc" ever goes to hell it won't matter, just compile/setup everything on/for an olimex, odroid, bananapi, nanopi, tinkerboard, pcduino, whatever (see
https://www.armbian.com/download/ ) and you're done.
At least that's what I honestly believe.