I said this near the beginning of the the thread: the most compelling reason to own a desktop PC is access to a fast GPU, followed by things like memory, cooling, and CPU core count. The market Apple is targeting know they need these resources, and then accept that they need to get them from a desktop. We here in this thread know we want a desktop, and then decide what resources we'd like. Fast desktops are still a viable consumer market because of gamers and amateur/semi-professional/vanity content creators who are more than willing to spend c. $2000 on a nice rig. The Studio (I think) nicely captures this market as well as people who benefit financially from a faster computer.
The question of whether to get a desktop keeps shifting over time, and may be shifting again. First storage caught up, then processor and memory caught up, now it seems GPU may be catching up, but cooling is still a challenge.
I'm still not sure how I'm going to transition to AS from my two Intel machines, but the answer may be determined by acoustics. I've grown totally spoiled by the iMac Pro's refusal to spin up the fans unless I'm asking something truly outlandish. A M1 Max MBP with 64 GB RAM could do everything the iMac Pro does and do it a good deal faster, but I want to know whether it will be as quiet when driving multiple high-resolution displays. (My Intel 16" JetBook/desk cooker definitely is not.)
