I think that's mainly out of luck. If the exploit had been discovered two years later, the story would likely be different. Apple has been much more ambitious with their ARM processor designs and has shipping iOS and AppleTV products affected by Meltdown.

Shipping or not, it illustrates, that Intel was not unique.

Now can you argue that the given faulty design was not directly influenced by Intel conscious and deliberate bad decisions ?

I'm not sure what kind of answer you are expecting. All I am saying is that Intel is not uniquely in the wrong here. There is a whole industry of bad decisions. Whether the decisions were conscious, or only obvious in hindsight I can't say.