also Pi4 now supports boot from USB: https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/boot-raspberry-pi-4-usb
I bought one to run Windows on my Retina MacBook Pro. I only need Windows for gaming when visiting friends, and it works flawlessly for that purpose.
Check speeds when you get it to see what works for you best.
Pi is 100% not suitable for 100% duty work. It’s just a toy.
SD cards are quite frankly horrible boot media as well.
That's an additional 145kg of CO₂ per year (2018 US average).
For that you gain:
Decent thermal design., A decent quality enclosure, A power supply (thinkpad brick), Two displayport holes, An SATA interface (M.2 form) for an SSD, Built in Wifi, A RAM slot you can chuck 16Gb in, 2 more USB ports.
There's no competition. I paid 79 GBP each for mine (I own 3). Pi is 57 GBP bare board.
Pictures. Mac mini for scale: https://imgur.com/a/jXjLusb
And on CO2, perhaps you should just do without it if it's a problem.