Generally, my Take about low end or otherwise "compromised" systems is that they got that way somehow, and the somehow is
usually because the computer-buying public wanted a less expensive computer.
In the case of the 6200, a 6200 bundle (with a keyboard, mouse, software, monitor, encyclopedia, and usually a printer or modem) cost around a third of what a basic 9500 cost, before you added
literally anything to the 9500. (Granted, that proportion goes down a lot if you compare the 6200, more realistically, to a 7200 or 7500.) A fully equipped 6200 cost just about the same as a bare 6100, and the two run PowerPC-native software at roughly the same speed.
The IIvx mostly gets compared to the Mac IIci. I don't have exact pricing and performance information, but I imagine that it pans out pretty similarly to the Performa 600, which I detailed below, and in a thread I linked.
I think the thing that a lot of people forget is that the Macintosh isn't just DTP and Photoshop and video production, but it's an entire platform representing a ton of different use cases. That the Performa 600 or 6200 isn't good at some of them shouldn't doom the machines to be forgotten or intentionally destroyed, it's just.... these were basic computers meant to be affordable introductions to the current hot topics in computing when they were new.
The Performa 600 in particular, based on the IIvx/vi, heavily emphasized the potential for convenient, inexpensive CD-ROM multimedia. The 6200 features that in full swing, and to my recollection, most 6200 configurations include a modem for access to the Internet or other online service.
Part of that performance increase is probably caused by the switch from 60 or 70 ns FPM memory (14 - 17 MHz) to 66/83 MHz SDRAM.
I think platform improvements end up being very important in computer performance issues. It's easy to ignore the fact that everything about the Generation 3 PowerPC Mac platform is radically faster than the previous machines.
I also love the G3 macs because Apple dumped the prices on them several times, shifting the price of the basic desktop G3 all the way down to $1299 before the series was discontinued in favor of the blue-and-white models. That's a bit shy of a thousand dollars short of where that class of machine was two or three years earlier.
Similar to the 6200, I've always been dismissive of the Mac IIvx because the of the 1/2 speed bus.
The IIvx (and IIvi and Performa 600) came up in a thread a few weeks ago. I reviewed the original MacWorld review of the P600 from 1992, when they compared it against the "similar looking on paper" Mac IIci, which, while older, has a much higher end overall design.
That discussion was here: (the link should hopefully go directly to my post on March 9.)
Paraphrased: Slow isn't necessarily bad. Context is everything.
The Performa 600 (I haven't yet looked at a IIvx review) benches at about half the speed of the years-old and still much more expensive Mac IIci. Ultimately, the way to reconcile that is to remember that the Performa 600 (and ultimately the IIvx and IIvi) were never intended to be sold as a replacement to the IIci -- that was the Quadra 700. Instead, they were meant to be inexpensive and "good enough" for budget-constrained use cases. They were, helpfully, upgradeable in a couple ways. (NuBus slots, video RAM, CPU upgrade slot, the cache slot is said to be disabled or not present in the P600, at least by MacWorld in 1992.)
The Performa 600 was a lot less expensive than a IIci and was a "good enough" system if you wanted to have a computer but didn't need or want to pay for Quadra performance.
