[jacquesm]

Yes, they royally messed that up. But as to your query: there are nice alternatives, there is this board+library:

https://gitlab.com/jmattheij/rekabit

With a bit of fiddling and some 3D printed parts you're off to the races, controls two motors and four servos and has blinkenlights. You can use the board with the Micro:BIT but you can also use it with some fiddling with an arduino (renesas will probably work best) or a Raspberry Pi 2040. It also has a whole slew of 'Grove' connectors if you want to wire up more sensors and actuators and it exports the bus.

I've added links to the 3D printed parts and some links to the originals on thingiverse, it took some modifications to get it all to fit nicely but it really works well. And those boards are pretty cheap.