I believe this is one of the insights Steve Wozniak had that allowed them to make Apple // hardware a lot simpler and cheaper than the competition. They implemented this sort of stuff in the operating system.

Commodore had these complicated chips too - for example the 1541 disk drive had the same 6502 CPU as the C64! They were able to compete on the price in the 80s by the virtue of owning their chief chip supplier, MOS Techonology.