(This is a rambly post imo.)
I have drank enough coffee now to remain angry at locked down hardware after seeing some posts.
You shouldn't have to run software with funny names or mess with configuration scripts to be able to run software of your choosing on any device. It should be as simple as copying the software to the device and running it like anything else.
The hurdles of jailbreaking a device were put there to stop you from running the track. They do not need to be there. Every homewbrew developer, every hacker searching for an easier entry point would love for the process to be as trivial as possible, for more people to be able to use their device as they see fit.
In some cases, once that entry point was found, it was indeed that easy. In the mid-2000s I was playing NES roms on a Dreamcast. The process was to burn a CD with a copy of the program and a folder full of roms. Incredibly low effort, and still a valid way to do so today.
When I got a PSP specifically because portable 8-bit and 16-bit emulation was a thing that you couldn't just do at the time the process for the user was again low effort: download a zip and it would have two folders, one for the actual program and one... I have no idea honestly, stub? loader? Some second not-quite-identically named folder was enough to get the system to boot something Sony didn't want it to. I'm under the impression that the original firmware only on Japanese consoles straight up didn't care at all and did initially let you launch anything compiled for a PSP off the memory stick.
But the PSP could get firmware updates allowing its oversights to be patched. I got to be around for the cat-and-mouse game of new firmware releases being required for newer games or features. Seeing folks debate on whether they wanted to play Liberty City Stories or keep their homebrew. Seeing folks interested in homebrew having to buy specific games that people created exploits for to downgrade firmware. Programs to spoof firmware so a game would think you were on the proper one, or rebooting from the memory stick entirely into the latest firmware and having to restart the console to drop back into the exploited one.
When Wii homebrew first began, nobody wanted the process of booting it to be loading up Twilight Princess and talking to a guy who says what you named Epona, which a modified save changed to an absurd value and was able to chain into booting a .DOL file off your SD card. But that sure is how it had to be done until better methods, and system specific exploits were discovered.
Hell a softmodded Wii meant being able to run things off an external hard drive, free of the limits of un-upgradable internal storage and disc swaps. The system got demonstrably better for it even if all you did was rip your own discs.
The 3DS was the same way! I've got a folder of screenshots when I first played Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon where they start off with me pointing a camera at the screen that eventually turns into proper captures thanks to homebrew. Miiverse meant sharing then publicly, and also it's gone now (from the hardware's perspective at least). I've still got my screenshots.
I've got backups of Pokemon saves that let me restart the games without having to start from scratch or pay money to upload them somewhere else. When Sun/Moon came out, I was able to breed a Meowth in Soul Silver, use homebrew to dump the save. Dump my Moon save. Edit the save to put the Meowth on my team, and play through the game the way I wanted to long before any update to allow importing pokemon from Bank.
The 3DS getting firmware patches even after the system is retired and its eshop closed? That is spite. Every hurdle was deliberately placed. If there is something your "dead" console can do with homebrew that you are interested in, you should absolutely take the one-time effort to get it going and enjoy the device you own on your own terms. If some rando is yelling at you to hack your 3DS because you have a 3DS: disregard them. But do know that the only reason there's any complexity to any of this is because a corporation, be that Nintendo or otherwise, has gone out of their way to make it as complex and difficult as possible
