Apple have offered plenty of machines with i3's. The fact that they currently don't is more a Haswell refresh issue than i3's simply not being powerful enough. My father, who works for one of the largest telco companies in Canada recently got his newest laptop for work, and you guessed it, it has an i3 in it and runs just fine for what he needs. The company chose to spend extra money on SSD's on all these new machines vs. going for the i5 option, just like I would have if I'd been doing it.
I've got one in an older iMac and it's completely adequate for what I need. If I'd needed more grunt, I could have upgraded to an i5 or i7, just like one can with the Surface 3 devices should they need more power.
By your logic, Apple are a bunch of money grubbing, screwing bastards for offering less powerful options for either the same price or more, similar to the 5c and the new iPad variants, no?
Might be wise to get some therapy for the MS blind sided-ness. Most people just don't use what they don't like vs. writing up National Enquirer "news" posts interjected with their own opinions and "facts".