... well suited for learning how to do any sort of embedded project - for any sort of vaguely desktop role the pi 2 is much faster/better. Develop with a 2, test on a B+ (which has all the ports the 0 and A+ don't), and then when you have something finished there deploy it on the zero.

At this level you ought to customize what you put around the pi0 - if a USB cable is too expensive/big, you can solder 5V leads onto the test points on the rear side. Same with SPI and other 3.3V IO. Use the smallest used non-counterfeit Sandisk class 2 microSD's. This kinda stuff.

Also looking backwards (and upwards!) part of the post mortem about LISP machines was that there was nothing cheap (at the time) to run finished code on.