You are absolutely right - and this should not involve money at all. I also have an Intel Skull Canyon NUC base on a 6th Gen i7 - loaded to the brim with RAM and fast storage - which can easily handle Windows 11. Microsoft was not at all clear as to why these PCs are excluded. There's going to be a backlash for sure come winter.

Microsoft can still change their plans before launch (they actually said as much a few days after the Win11 unveiling) so there's still hope that all PCs that do meet all the security prerequisites for Win11 will get the update after all. Cross fingers!