You're missing the fact that Apple uses the same building blocks for their chips across all of their devices. The M1/M2 are "just" a bunch of the same CPU core

You're missing the fact that Apple uses the same building blocks for their chips across all of their devices. The M1/M2 are "just" a bunch of the same CPU cores found in A14 and A15. They do the same with the GPU blocks — the GPUs in M1/M1 Pro/M1 Max/M1 Ultra (and presumably M2/3/4 etc. iterations of those chips) also have the same GPU cores, "just" more of them (and probably clocked differently, not sure on that). So missing the RT hardware for iPhone 14 Pro is probably not a huge deal. Missing it for A16 tape-out, which if the pattern holds, means it'll also be missing in M3-generation of chips, is a much bigger one.