I think that exact capability also attracted a lot of great musical talent to it, who used crazy techniques and experimented with it continuously to get new sounds out of that breadbox.
It had a sense of evolution where you started with a beeping machine, then a game gets released with such a great soundtrack that you'd simply leave it running just to listen to it (Ninja, Traz, International Karate, Giana Sisters, ...), and then you get a demo that manages to play back the stoning scene of The Life of Brian - all that's still stuck in my head from my C64 days.