Same story here, except my quick and temporary purchase was about five years ago. It's been my daily driver for off-desk work ever since. It's still snappy and the battery life is great, too.
I went full Linux on it using MrChromebox[0] a few years back with zero complaints.
It's uncanny how many devs have a story like this. There's something about compiling software on a barebones machine, almost like restoring an old VW and taking it to the track.
I've ended up gifting the 4 or 5 budget chromebooks to nephews , pre-installed with Crouton / Crostini set up and accounts on leetcode / hackthebox to train on.
It's remarkable how capable Chromebooks are. I tried using my $600 iPad Pro to code on and I never found it to be as capable as my $200 chromebook
It's great for reducing distractions and getting a better feel when the code you're writing is slower than it ought to be. My desktop is an M1 Mac Mini, which has been phenomenal, but it can certainly hide inefficiencies in code.
Once I get my office situation set, I want to start doing everything on an RPi.
I went full Linux on it using MrChromebox[0] a few years back with zero complaints.
[0] http://mrchromebox.tech/