It is much, much easier than it used to be. The documentation and videos alone available make something like this a very welcoming learning experience that anyone can complete step by step by pausing a video and replaying it.
Like most things, really. I used to build routers from old PCs, but eventually those tiny appliances caught up with the performance/functionality I need.
You can do a lot of routing on a $70 Mikrotik, although they might not be "easy".
On printed page five of the brochure [0] it mentions
Size of RAM 32 GB ECC
RAM type DDR4
On the one hand, it'd be nice if that was mentioned everywhere that the RAM size was mentioned. On the other hand, perhaps ECC RAM is effectively mandatory for Enterprise equipment, so mentioning it is redundant? IDK, I don't often purchase that sort of stuff.
For sure, it's a path and passage towards devices like that.
Everyone has a starting point, starting with soemone has lying around is one thing.. the quicker they can get going the more they can get to leveraging the real power in most devices.
You can do a lot of routing on a $70 Mikrotik, although they might not be "easy".