The IP academics keep making on the cheap is always compared to ARM cores in similar class to prove them out. They always come out superior. So, Im doubting best engineers or product. Since they do have good engineers, ARM must be intentionally underdoing their designs to maximize their cash or something. Maybe make a lot of them. Idk how much IP they actually have.

I agree it's beneficial that it's already silicon-proven by time most customers get it. The biggest selling point, though, was what ARM themselves said when open ISA topic first came up: the massive ecosystem, esp software and dev tools, makes the licensing worth the money. Im not sure how true that is. Probably varies a lot depending on who is using it but might be true for many. RISC-V needs to get its ecosystem super-strong to challenge ARM in general sense on top of pre-proven IP customers can trust. Ecosystem is the bigger issue, though.