I think the Z80 is mostly adding some instructions to the 8080 set, with a few incompatibilities. But I agree, preferences can also depends on the assembler's syntax (and the tools!). For example, I can't stand the GNU assembly language because of all the % gibberish and inverted operands vs the official Intel syntax, but it's just a matter of habit.
The fact there were Pascal compilers on CPUs like Z80 and 6502 always amazes me.
My notions of required memory size have been completely biased by what today's executables are using. I think I couldn't get back to the mindset of the 80s and 90s, or estimate what was possible or not.