Apple IIgs (a 16-bit computer built around an 8-bit one from the previous decade, kind of a 16-bit Apple /// with a //c inside and two completely

Apple IIgs (a 16-bit computer built around an 8-bit one from the previous decade, kind of a 16-bit Apple /// with a //c inside and two completely different ways to output pixels, plus a full professional synthesizer attached somewhere in there - fun machine, but don't look too close). I feel like despite its weird nature, that you accurately describe, it still would have been a really legit competitor had they simply given it a faster 65C816. It simply didn't have the CPU horsepower to really do the things it was otherwise capable of... the Mac-like GUIs, the new graphical modes in games, etc. When you use a IIGS with one of the accelerator cards (Transwarp, etc) that gives it a faster 65C816 (7mhz, 10mhz, etc)you really get a sense of what the IIGS could have been. Because at that point it was a solid Atari ST / Amiga peer (very roughly speaking, lots of feature differences) It's not entirely clear to me why it didn't have a faster 65C816 to begin with. I know there was a lot of competition inside Apple between the AppleII and Mac divisions, and I suspect the IIGS was hobbled so that it didn't eclipse the entry level Macs. However I'm also not sure if higher-clocked 65C816 chips were even available at the time the IIgs was designed and released, so maybe it wasn't an option.