Well, "if it works". We got caught by that with an ARM9 Linux board. The manufacturer's plan seemed to be to design bespoke products, then make some more money by offering the hardware on the open market (nothing wrong with that idea, IMHO.) But the original customer got a 2.4 kernel and wanted nothing more. USB was the major I/O on the board, and all the really useful USB features came in kernel version 2.6. We couldn't upgrade ourselves because of proprietary SD card drivers. The original customer didn't want an upgrade. The manufacturer wouldn't release an upgrade. There we were. Mini-ITX boards work just fine.
Mel.