What does this statement even mean? "the maximal clock is an inherent limitation"?
That the design decisions behind M1 make it impossible to systematically achieve stable operation at higher clocks than 3.2 ghz.
Direct evidence: tests done by Anandtech some years ago that showed a sharp exponential increase in power consumption when approaching the maximal operating clock. If I remember correctly, this was done for A12, but if Apple's basic design didn't change it could suggest that the current chips already operate at or close to their limit.
Indirect evidence: just a few considerations. First, if Firestorm could support higher clocks at the expense of higher power consumption, it is likely that Apple could have squeezed at least 10-20% more at 100-150% higher power consumption. That would still conformably place them under desktop Intel or AMD — with a very wide margin, but deliver higher performance. So why is the M1 in the Studio still limited to 3.2Ghz? Surely it has a budget of 20W or so for single-core operation? Second, it has been observed that Firestorm has relatively long pipeline stages, which would limit the maximal attainable clock.
The overall idea is that Apple's design is probably very different from Intel or AMD. Modern x86 CPUs are designed to achieve very high clock rates while remaining scalable and operational across wide clock ranges. Apple CPUs are designed to do as much work possible with as little energy usage as possible, which is not the same as just running a CPU at a lower clock to save energy.
There is no doubt, that you can clock the M1/M2 much higher, if Apple would decide that the power increase would be acceptable for its customers.
See above. I don't believe that Apple would miss the chance to claim the absolute performance crown in single-threaded operation.