Deprecated in microcontroller land means you should probably move away sometime within the next 10 years or so. And being on the bleeding edge can be quite painful. So I think Xtensa based ESP32 was a good choice, for a first board. It will have the best support for at least another 3 years. And possibly way longer.
Also, arguably the entire Arduino brand started on a deprecated (and much less capable) platform, the Atmel AVR8. It was not an issue either.
Arduino’s decision process doesn’t make sense to me. The Uno R4 Wifi is another instance of selecting an ESP32-S3, but pretty much treating it as a dumb peripheral to a lower seed main MCU.
Thus, a new Arduino platform is being created out of a deprecated family of MCUs, the Tensilica-based ESP32s.
0. https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/espressif-moves-exclusively-...