Yeah it’s dumb. The M3 display engine thing is really partially about the area but ultimately about artifical segmentation. If they wanted to add marginal, area cheap display engines they could.
Apple segments their lineup to where past a 4+4 chip, 24GB of memory and one external 4K display are all you’ll get — they limit the GPU too but that’s sort of *the* thing about the Pro/Max and isn’t artificial because it does cost area, they need bandwidth to fuel it more than anything else, and a MacBook Air doesn’t have the cooling capacity to handle more.
But the CPU cores, 4K display out limitation, and RAM cap at 24GB are real forces that push towards buying a more expensive Mx Pro/Max system. In fairness the 4+4 setup in Apple’s case is still *very* performant relative to Intel/AMD, but I’d wager a good part of the reason people buy Mx Pro/Max laptops is for a bit more CPU oomph over the baseline counterfactual, multiple 4K display capability, faster SSDs and more RAM options.
Intel/AMD couldn’t get away with this especially the display part even for a 128B bus baseline part and neither would/could Qualcomm.