You should compare it to programming an EPROM with your 8-Bit computer, because the micros-bit obviously does not have a screen, keyboard or connection for external storage.
I know what you mean, I still have my Commodore 64 and it still works, even the Competition pro does. And I still have S.E.U.C.K., which can be seen as the ancestor of Scratch, on floppy disk.
Btw the 8 bit computers I'm talking about connected to the TV. No need to buy a separate screen.
Now if only modern tvs would accept a digital connection to a computer... oh wait...