I'm not the creative type of geek who has to tinker with home automation and constructing computer controlled reversible sedgewicks in my spare time, so I shouldn't judge, but I'm a little saddened that most of the comments here are about using the Raspberry Pi as a media server instead of controlling an automated fish tank feeder that automatically orders more fish food from Amazon and remotely controls your washing machine.
As for the MIPS board, I can see it finding a home in universities where there's more need to teach fundamentals than secondary schools that are teaching the basics. i.e. if you're learning about architectures and assembler, you might as well have hardware to demonstrate things on, say MIPS, ARM, 68k, etc.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
