Perhaps the authors deliberately ignored the embedded systems "niche". Embedded systems have this "unusual" property that the one-time cost of software developm

Perhaps the authors deliberately ignored the embedded systems "niche". Embedded systems have this "unusual" property that the one-time cost of software development is dwarfed by the 10^N-times cost of more expensive components. This is also true in theory in the desktop world, but it's so easy to shame your customer for not using a high-end computer that it's a non-issue. Optimizing compilers are needed for embedded systems because low-end micro-controllers don't have the horsepower of desktops or even your latest smartphone, but yet the more features/the smarter behaviour the better. So you have better things to do than optimizing stuff for a processor you don't know very well and that may be replaced in 5 years.