I have a 2020 Mac, but my hub hasn't been an issue. I had 'hoped' that this might also fix the frequent inability to eject flash drives. I have multiple drives I use for OS installs, Utilities, etc... They will never eject from any of my M1 machine laptops. Just keeps telling me something is using it and I end up force ejecting it. Using the Apple USB C to A adapter, btw.
There are strange USB issues I have, my T7 is slower on these Thunderbolt ports than on some of my other machines.
I posted this on some forum where people were praising bringing back old ports. I'm not a conspiracy guy, but when I thought things out and looked at my current USB/TB issues, I came up with this...
"You know, part of me wonders if they are bringing 'old' ports back because they can't yield out chips right now with 4 dedicated TB/USB C pipes at full speed.
It makes sense. USB A stuff takes less space on chip or board and one USB 3 bus can handle their USB A port & the SD card reader. Honestly, they might even piggyback some of that onto the USB bus running the keyboard and trackpad. Easy to toss mini hdmi on there as well. It won't be full size, which means... A dongle.
It may be another year before they can have 4 full speed USB-C/TB 3 or 4 ports.
The perfect way to get by that limitation with few questions from the outside world is bring back old, slower ports to 'listen' to users.
Power as well. IF they do MagSafe, which I feel is inferior to USB charging because it pops loose too easily, it may not be to bring it back, but to free up the two ports they can make work all the time.
The current MBA's & MBP's (I have an Air with 16 Gig, btw) struggle to keep full speed with drives like the Samsung T7.
Just food for thought. I'm going to buy a 14" regardless anyway."