You say,

"Why on earth? every derivative released recently has HW SPI (at least Philips, Atmel and SILabs), when using that instead if UART mode 0 there is no need to get rid of extra bits as with UART use."

I'm not sure I know what you mean by SPI. Motorola has had something they call SPI since the '70's. If that's what you mean, there's nothing new about that. Are they all identical? Why would I want to use it?

Have you ever used a serial codec?

What do you mean "extra" bits?

You say,
"Of course, if you are stuck in the past and insist on using antiques your point may be valid. "

and I reply,
I use the things I have to use. I don't fix/replace what's not broken. I do what my client demands. Sometimes that means using antiques. They still work, after all, and sometimes really quite well. 805x's are 40- or 44-pin devices. Those other things aren't 805x's, though they may be similar. If you drop a DS89C4x0 into an 805x socket, it will work just fine, though it might be a mite fast.

RE