MediaTek used to supply a lot of lower-performance MIPS and ARM chips during 2010s. GP probably has that MediaTek == bad experience association. The actual chips weren't unreliable or horribly engineered, just slow, but people don't make a clear distinction there.
MediaTek may of caught up, but they're still associated with inefficient Chinese junk.
Sure but MediaTek isn't making the actual CPU, they're just making the unimportant parts of the chipset, who cares