Wasn't a big reason that success of Itanium relied heavily on compiler technology to make effective use of the VLIW architecture? And that even with compiler s

Wasn't a big reason that success of Itanium relied heavily on compiler technology to make effective use of the VLIW architecture? And that even with compiler support, it didn't manage to give Itanium systems a (big enough) edge over other systems? Combined with product delays & other issues. What makes more sense to me is Intel's proposal to drop some 16/32 bit legacy cruft from x86-64 ("x86-S"). Perhaps even drop user-mode 32 bit support? (depending on how much it simplifies implementations, and/or improves performance/W). Haven't heard about this recently. But maybe it's up for introduction later on? This would keep support for existing software (mostly) intact. But still cut out a nice chunk of x86 ugliness.