True. And in the Meshtastic (or MeshCore) scheme, a "repeater" can still be a Aurdino-like device, just with "bigger" antennas and better placement.
And if one wanted MikroTik scripting to interact with Meshtastic it be cheaper and easier to just use /tool/fetch to the Meshtastic API on the cheaper Aurdino-like device with Meshtastic/MeshCore firmware all setup.
While perhaps /container might (but unlikely) allow the LoRa radio to be wired to a container that could run some Mestastic/MeshCore code to do this, but even then no LoRa devices ARM-based, so no containers. So $20-40 for small board with LoRa radio running Meshtastic seems WAY WAY easier and less risk.
I did play with LoRaWAN a bit for fun, see Experiments with [:convert] for bits&bytes +CSV from /iot/.... I didn't write it up, but I did have some LoRa Aurdino's (that I had previously played with Meshtastic on, but using the LoRaWAN firmware get them to display messages from LoRaWAN with MQTT to the broker/lorawan-server described in the post – all running on MikroTik locally. So I know this is possible if you have some specific need – but to build a general "chat" app that be harder using "pure" LoRaWAN.
And we actually do use LoRaWAN+KNOTs at some site for Victron solar/power reporting to their VRM console (since Victron has LoRaWAN module but need gateway like KNOT) – which all works extremely well.