Hey Zimme, I had something similar. I have the NanoPi K2, and I had exactly this problem with the eth0.
But, also playing around, I installed the Armbian_21.05.0-trunk.70_Nanopik2-s905_hirsute_edge_5.11.11.img , was not working as expected, and I decide to give it a try to Debian Armbian_21.02.3_Nanopik2-s905_buster_current_5.10.21.img , and suddendly, the eth0 was there, working almost perfect. I did some updates, and bla bla, and because I fucked up with users and other things, I decide to flash it again and start from scratch, now that the eth0 is working... and again... not working again.
Now I'm trying what you said, also entering on armbian-config and updating the boot (not sure if this should be done there or not, I'm kind of newbie in Linux). But, still without good results. @zimme Could you please tell me which image you used to get it working again ?
Thanks in advance.
Also, if anyone can tell me how to push another u-boot that works on (with commands for dumb people like me), will be great !! I can do any test, but I need full instructions .. no idea how to change the u-boot, etc.
Muadiv.