In general, do Iot devices have any practical limit on the number of cycles that parameters/configurations can be changed? In the past I know that EPROM type of memory had very limited lifecycles. Since the newer EDGE drivers allow the configuration/parameters settings to be changed often, is that an issue relative to the component life?
I haven’t heard of that as an issue.
Remember that historically smartthings was much more limited than most Z wave platforms in allowing users to change parameter values. On other zwave platforms like Fibaro or Vera or Homeseer exposing parameter values was standard and people changed things like dim rates or cooldown Whenever they needed to through the standard device description interface. It is true that for these kinds of IOT devices these changes would not typically be very frequent. Anyway, usually you have a dim rate you like and you change a new switch to that and it would be unusual to change it again. But I haven’t heard of it as being an issue even for unusual cases. 
There are some other issues regarding batterylife for sleepy devices: it is typical for a batterypowered zwave device to only apply configuration changes once a day, or maybe every four hours, but that’s the same as it always was.
Zigbee is a somewhat different issue. Most inexpensive IOT Zigbee devices, including the kind typically used with a smartthings setup, only allow parameter changes at the time a device is first added to the network, and may not offer as many choices as a typical Z wave device in the same class. It’s much more common that a Z wave sensor would allow the user to change the reporting period, For example.
I think that’s just a design culture difference. Zigbee devices tend to be designed to be as powersparing as possible to extend battery life and reduce mains draw. Zwave has been more about being consumerfriendly and showing off advanced features.
So… I don’t think smartthings’ edge platform has introduced any new vulnerability in terms of hitting a limit on the number of configurations changes allowed. It hasn’t even really caught up with its competition yet in this area.