Boardburner2:
The Atmega 328 at the core of the Arduino has been used in automation etc by professional engineers for this.Arduino is basically a cheap educational platform that allows you to learn how to use it.
Many years ago embedded systems were developed using boards costing several hundreds.
We had to programme them using hex or octal as well.
What you program the chip in doesn't make it special. What the chip does makes it special.
Arduino Uno is a development board that can be used to make end product controllers with.
Arduino IDE is the free development software for Arduino boards.
If you already know how to use Arduino there are many things you can produce with it so how you get "basically a cheap educational platform that allows you to learn how to use it." eludes me since learning how to use it is just the start as stated by docs on this site.
Parts are cheaper now and integration more complete than before, it doesn't make these toys much as that's what I call them. They cease to be toys when they're put to work.