That's true, those also existed but what I've seen, they were not bought as much...

That's true, those also existed but what I've seen, they were not bought as much as the cheap kind. The ipod gave a reason to pay extra, those half way though products really did not.

Those things really didn't have a single real feature beyond playing music and recording with a microphone in the settings (which nobody really used)

The screen and processing power was way too bad to do anything else anyways, even if they wanted to.