your theory would be fine except for the slight problem that without ARM Inc the massive global low power smartphone market wouldn't exist today, in fact its only since the ARM cortex A8 that most average users finally realized that ARM existed, but they have been around a very long time and all the many ARM vendor licencee's have sown up the Mass low power world markets a very long time ago now.

sure there always was a small contingent of superH, MIPS etc vendors in phones to also contribute a small % and perhaps finally Intel will also find a place and help fill that small sub section of the world markets sometime soon, but remember this is not your old school x86 market place and the masses of long time ARM licencee's will not give up their low power top spot without a fight even for that small NON ARM corner.

as for "dozens of variations that are all incomparable with each other. So the market is flexible" you also have to remember and realize that's exactly what all these many ARM licencee's today are in the "Linaro" initiative to have all their ARM engineers actually write the new Cortex ARM/NEON SIMD optimized code and integrate or throw out all their old disparate ARM code bases into a single binary and submit it upstream in to the Kernel for all ARM/NEON vendors to simply load and use, and yet still remain flexible.

they are in effect providing a new standard base ARM platform infrastructure with ARM cortex at the core , again see Charbax's 32 videos at the Linaro Connect show to get a flavor of whats what http://slashdot.org/submission/2097239/videos-linaro-engineers-talk-about-the-status-of-linux-on-arm

as you say Tough Love, i too cant see Intel matching $ for $ the likes in bulk of for instance Freescale and their £22ish per 1.2ghz i.MX6 Quad core SOC with any of their intel offerings today or any time soon and that's just one single ARM white box vendor never mind any of the other vendors with faster ARM A15 and better SOC on the table this year.

LOL true, but no one cares as long as ARM Inc provides a Processor Optimization Pack (POP) for a given provider process and they do.

Guspaz, they skipped 22nm and went directly to 20nm as per their original 2010 plan

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4088580/TSMC-skips-22-nm-rolls-20-nm-process
"Mark LaPedus
4/13/2010 1:30 PM EDT

TSMC skips 22-nm, rolls 20-nm process ....
(TSMC) is putting a new spin on its strategy: After the 28-nm node, it plans to skip the 22-nm ''full node'' and will move directly to the 20-nm ''half node.''

At its technology conference here, the world's largest silicon foundry also provided details about its 20-nm CMOS process, which will be the company's main technology platform after the 28-nm node. TSMC will also not offer an 18-nm process.

TSMC's 20-nm process is a 10-level metal technology based on a planar technology. It will feature a high-k/metal gate scheme, strained silicon and newfangled ''low-resistance'' copper ultra-low-k interconnects--or what it calls ''low-r.

'' For the 20-nm node, it will only offer a high-k/metal-gate scheme for the gate stack--and not a silicon dioxide option.
TSMC (Hsinchu) will continue to use 193-nm immersion lithography at 20-nm, but it will also deploy a double-patterning and source-mask optimization schemes.

Unlike its previous processes in recent times--which focused on low power first--TSMC's initial 20-nm process will be a high-performance technology. Following that process, it will roll out a low-power technology.

With the announcement, TSMC is seeking to gain an edge over its leading-edge rivals, such a GlobalFoundries, Samsung and UMC. ...."

thats what TSMC is for and why ARM inc have them and IBM etc as core partners for their tape out implementation program as in
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4229820/ARM-TSMC-design-20-nm-A15-processor
from way back in 10/18/2011

ARM said it would now optimize its physical IP to the TSMC 20-nm process for power, performance and area and produce a specification for a Cortex-A15 processor optimization pack (POP). It did not say how soon this would be completed.

"This first 20-nm ARM Cortex-A15 tape out paves the way for the next generation of SoC integration and performance," said Mike Inglis, general manager of ARM's processor division, in a statement. These SoCs will be suitable for smartphones, tablet computers, digital home systems, servers and wireless infrastructure, ARM said.

"Is Intel gonna fab the 20nm ARM chips?"

LOL the days not any where near where intel would be producing arm core tape out silicon, not even in obscure ARM FPGA chips.

thats what TSMC is for and why ARM inc have them and IBM etc as core partners for their tape out implementation program as in
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4229820/ARM-TSMC-design-20-nm-A15-processor from way back in 10/18/2011

ARM said it would now optimize its physical IP to the TSMC 20-nm process for power, performance and area and produce a specification for a Cortex-A15 processor optimization pack (POP). It did not say how soon this would be completed.

"This first 20-nm ARM Cortex-A15 tape out paves the way for the next generation of SoC integration and performance," said Mike Inglis, general manager of ARM's processor division, in a statement. These SoCs will be suitable for smartphones, tablet computers, digital home systems, servers and wireless infrastructure, ARM said.