The ESP8266 is in every ESP8266 based board. Your favorite ESP8266 based board just happens to be the D1 that comes with extra bells and whistles, such as a USB port.
The point I originally made, that apparently started your tirade, was that the ESP8266 is the common chip that provides the capability people are looking for.
They don't need to buy a D1 to get that capability, they can buy _ANY_ board with an ESP8266 inside! So long as it has an ESP8266 inside, they get the community support, IDE support, and WiFi support. If they want/need it, they can also get GPIO and directly program the ESP8266 inside, but that is _NOT_ required. You can plug any ESP8266-based board into another microcontroller and get WiFi connectivity through the serial pins.
You've found the chip - now you just find the board. How do you not understand that?
With that said, I feel this could go on forever... so... we're done.