I mean you're kind of setting the parameters with hindsight here. On paper alphanumeric was always known to be more secure. But there was a very long time where there was no way that your run of the mill thief was going to get the equivalent of a GreyKey and break into your pin protected, activation locked iPhone 7 by hopping on AliExpress...
I agree a run of the mill burglar wouldn't have the foresight to sit on your phone for years and years, since the value of breaking in probably diminishes almost immediately as you get a new phone, Wallet deactivates, etc. but it's not a reach to imagine that in a few years we'll see the equivalent of the current Cellebrite tech become widely available.
If you're the kind of person to bet that a company that already got hacked for most of their data once... already has their hardware leaked on eBay because they partner with notoriously unreliable government partners... and relies on open vulnerabilities won't have their tech reverse engineered any time soon? You should save that $100 for a rainy day.
Will their tech leak, sure, that’s possible. Will equivalent tech for a future device a few years from now exist and be freely available, not as given as you seem to believe.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800833252942.html?gateway...
I agree a run of the mill burglar wouldn't have the foresight to sit on your phone for years and years, since the value of breaking in probably diminishes almost immediately as you get a new phone, Wallet deactivates, etc. but it's not a reach to imagine that in a few years we'll see the equivalent of the current Cellebrite tech become widely available.