There might have been a case for staying with Intel/AMD on all Mac desktops, on the grounds that power efficiency is less important and the latest x86 chips bea

There might have been a case for staying with Intel/AMD on all Mac desktops, on the grounds that power efficiency is less important and the latest x86 chips beat M1/M2 in absolute performance. But keeping Intel in only one model used by a tiny fraction of users isn't at all feasible. You'd get the opposite of compatibility because Mac development would focus almost entirely on arm64, with Intel as an afterthought or not supported at all.