Not sure how much we should care about HT these days. It would be nice if somebody with a processor with a lot of cores (8 or more) could run a few tests to see what the difference is with it on and off. Tests that span across a variety of workloads, like heavy threaded loads like video encoding, and workloads that benefit from fast single thread performance, but not so much from a ton of threads (games?). I've seen a ton of benchmarks, but I don't recall seeing one like that.
It's also kinda silly all the bitching about HT in this thread, considering the top model is still endowed with it. There has always been two K models since K models have been a thing, one with and one without HT; Coffee Lake being the exception, which has 3 models, a quad with no HT, a hex with no HT, and a hex with HT. Also, all HEDT chips have had HT, with the one exception of that i5 Kaby Lake chip. Ryzen 5 and up has SMT. Threadripper has SMT. Nobody is taking HT away. Who is buying these chips that also needs HT anyway? If you really need all those threads, you should either be looking at Threadripper, x299, or a proper server setup if you really need 9001 threads. If you demand top single thread performance AND threads, then the 9900k is for you. Beyond that you'll have to prioritize your needs/wants. You can't have super high core counts and super high clock speeds at the same time, unless you get a x299 chip, a serious cooling system, and a bit of luck in the silicon lottery wouldn't hurt. It's been that way since the beginning of time. Remember all those debates about whether C2D or C2Q was better because C2D was hitting higher clock speeds, but C2Q had 4 cores instead of 2? Same difference today, just bigger numbers. It's like asking for a Mack truck that also could also outrun all the other vehicles at the Daytona 500, or a 747 that can outmaneuver an F-22.