it's so clear that they limit it to 24GB to prevent cannibalization of the macbook pro. I personally could go for a M3 base chip with 64GB or 128GB of memory.
At which point you might as well spring for the Pro.
I can't fault the business logic but as someone who'd only use a Mac for occasional iOS development, this nudging upward dissuades me from pursuing that idea altogether.
The Air with 16GB is not too bad, especially if you get the discounts that are everywhere.
There's a big server rack at home with multiple servers, so the Linux server part isn't a draw in my case.