I remember (Yahoo? I think) making some really questionable acquisitions before everything fell apart; almost like it was being used a dumpster to pack a bunch of failed startups into.

Based on nothing but gut, this sounds like a deal to pay out to the investors in Wonder with Atari cash. The "synergies" will never pan out, technologies will never be combined.

There is no Atari cash, there is no Atari, just few dudes with legal rights to the brand and borderline scam (lying multiple times) crowdfunded half a laptop pretending to be a console with no games.

Are they positioning themselves to be something of an nvidia shield or raspberry pi running retropi/libreelec competitor?

Do they envision the Atari VCS will become a new platform to develop for? A new paradigm to combine couch gaming/streaming and the mobile market?

Or is it just a cash grab for people with Atari 2600 nostalgia?

The last thing I heard about them was that a major key people involved in the design left the company because he stopped being paid at some point for his work on the project. I was really looking forward to buy a new VCS but I'm afraid it would probably never materialize.

Its more of an Ouya.

Atari was my first computer, and I remember it fondly. It's extremely sad to see the brand being abused like this.