IMHO, the 386DX was the first decent Intel CPU - got rid if the weird memory models of its predecessors, supported real 32 bit instructions and had a competitive performance. In respect of the memory model and instruction set, it's the direct ancestor of today's x86 processors, even AMD64 ones.
Yep. 80386 was a great CPU. Yes, yes, x86 legacy blah blah but you know what? An 80386 can address up to 4gb of RAM*. Out of the box. When they were new. When 4gb of RAM would've cost you $3,640,480.00, on average.
You can follow the history of the CPU and what it could do just by looking at Windows install CDs, particularly NT based OS's - there's almost always an "i386" directory (I think Win7 and Vista 64 bit versions may have done away with this).
