Some aspects are multi-dimensional. More RAM can be good, but faster or unified RAM can also be good. Neither model has both. Same goes for the CPU which isn't

Some aspects are multi-dimensional. More RAM can be good, but faster or unified RAM can also be good. Neither model has both. Same goes for the CPU which isn't really comparable by spec but perhaps more by productivity. At that point we get in to the 'well what are you intending to do with the device' territory and we end up with nomadic use vs. desktop use etc. I do think that the whole power management (be it cooling fans or runtime on battery) as a complete picture can be compared (pretty much the way you described), but it gets murky again if we try to compare operating systems since they all seem to do it differently. When Linux on the M1 turned out to be very fast, some people thought the systems were artificially limited for no reason and linux would then 'unlock' that free speed, but it turned out to simply be bad power management and run at high performance all the time. That can feel great (or, responsive) but at the same time reduce the on-battery time so much that it becomes pointless. It's tough to make proper comparisons, even when Apple was all-Intel it wasn't easy as even having 'similar SKUs' in terms of silicon doesn't really tell a useful story for the actual user experience.