This isn't really suitable for the purposes you're describing, but it has a niche for firewalls and routers that may interest someone. I've been using PC-Engines Alix[1] boards for this purpose since 2008. They are 1-3 ports depending on model, but with VLAN tagging a few ports can do a lot of routing or other traffic processing. I run OpenBSD on mine, but they should work well with anything that can run headless.

[1]http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm