I'm sorry, but where has this discussion gone.
Intel is focusing on lower power consumption, less heat, and a more integrated package for a good reason. Intel "mobile" isn't a wasted effort. It isn't really even a wasted effort on their enthusiast offerings.
The idea that Intel has a distinction between mobile offerings and desktop hardware is foolish. The laptop, nettop, and tablet are all technically mobile devices. Each of these devices is also simply a shrink of its desktop and networking counterpart. The server chip is scaled back into the Enthusiast chip, the enthusiast chip is scaled back into the mainstream offering, and the mainstream offering is scaled back into the mobile devices. If you want to complain about this production strategy then you can go pay $800 for your next i7 4770k. Scaling back designs saves money, and achieving goals on your least expensive platform means by the time you hit the enthusiast levels those moderate goals can be far more substantial.
Intel is focusing on heat because it is now a substantial problem. Previous generations could dissipate larger amounts of heat, because they had less heat generating components in a larger area. As dies shrink it becomes impossible to have the same thermal output with the exact same processing potential. For this, Intel has increased thermal efficiency. That 6 core socket 2011 processor is only possible because Intel decreased thermal outputs from their process. I'd hazard that if thermal efficiency wasn't pushed that 6 core processor would have half the transistors that it does, and run near destructive temperatures at less than 3.0 GHz.
I may agree that Intel is being a bit duplicitous in their dealings with enthusiasts, but we aren't a real market. For every water cooled beast dozens of tablets, a multitude of laptops, and a gaggle of work stations are sold. Yes, we pay more for the "privilege" of overclocking, but not ten times more. We seek to push boundaries, and often time spend money on things we don't strictly need (hello Titan). At the same time, if overclockers didn't exist it'd be a hard sell to make new GPUs and CPUs. Realistically, there are core2quads out there merrily chugging along in the business world. Without overclockers, and early adopters, the price of new hardware would kill the markets.
I believe Intel is trying to make nice with performance enthusiasts, because their last really awesome leap was SB. If you made that change, then everything since then has been a nearly impossible sell. Increasing performance by 15%, with an up-front cost of several hundred dollars, just doesn't make a lot of business sense. Intel is trying to court back enthusiasts, because the mainstream is becoming a more difficult market. ARM is cheap, and competes well with Intel in the low cost mobile market. Laptop sales have flagged, because tablets offer enough performance to partially replace them. Desktop markets have flagged, because upgrading is an expensive action which doesn't have a lot of benefits with what is currently on the market. The only real market left is the enthusiast, who are willing to pay extra money for minimal improvements in performance. I can hear them saying that they are courting enthusiasts, I know the track record speaks to the opposite, and I know the lack of competition is making Intel seriously consider how much performance is actually required for an enthusiast platform. I'd say that I'm jaded enough to not believe their promises, but hopeful enough to want the words to be supported by some action. Removing that cheap thermal interface material on their mainstream processors is a good start at least....
