Yeah the crazy number of SKUs has been a real issue at Intel for a long time.

They need to also get realistic about performance and stop playing games. Performance improvements from here on are going to be incremental, and I think most OEMs, enterprises and enthusiasts understand that. Release a slightly better performing chip every year, THAT DOESN'T HAVE MAJOR BUGS, and for servers and enterprise, yeah, keep tweaking efficiency because that IS their bread and butter. Keep exploring innovative ideas like specialized cores, because we're hitting the limits of what silicon can do, so it's all about optimizing operations now, at least until there's some radical breakthrough like the diamond based chips researchers keep talking about.

It should be a serious wakeup call for them that the Snapdragon X Plus CPU in my new Surface Pro can eat a core i5's lunch AND more than double battery life. We may stop seeing any x86 CPUs in any laptops except gaming laptops in the next few years.