It makes some sense to me when you realize the 8080 was salvaging work they did attempting to win the Datapoint contract (which they lost), and making the best

It makes some sense to me when you realize the 8080 was salvaging work they did attempting to win the Datapoint contract (which they lost), and making the best of a terrible design in the 8008 by being "source" compatible. The "real" next gen processor was supposed to be iAPX 432 but due to delays they needed a stopgap, thus the 8086 was born in a hurry... so anything with high risk was off the table from the start. It was never going to get rid of segmented memory though believe it or not they added GP registers compared to the 8080. Funny how iAPX 432 would not be the last time Intel tried to set a new standard for CPUs nor the last time they tried to rely on sufficiently clever compilers. All of the above mentioned CPUs suffered from trying to be suitable for desktop calculators and/or prioritizing assembly language conveniences. iAPX 432 tried to partially implement garbage collection in hardware. Even the venerable 286 and its broken protected mode was designed for industrial systems - Intel never intended it to be used in a general purpose PC which may explain some of its quirks.