All incredibly valid points. What I hold against the X86 isn the constant additions to its incredibly large instruction set. But as an owber of a Phenom X3, I will admit that X86-64 is a very strong performer.
However, Intel may just find the legacy of the long dead Acorn (ARM) sneaking up on them.
I've seen announcements for a 2Gjhz dual core processor to be produced in China next year and Freescale's claiming a future 4Ghz unit (that would definately compete directly against X86).