There's a vast difference between such a core being used solely for bringup/power management/housekeeping and it having a network connection to the outside and being used for "remote management" (and running with godawfully insecure parsing code, at that).
> Complain about what they're used for and the closed source nature of their code.
All of these cores will have the ability to have network connections because they'll bringup the whole SoC including the network MAC.
> However, while Intel ME can't be turned off completely, it is still possible to modify its firmware up to a point where Intel ME is active only during the boot process, effectively disabling it during the normal operation, which is what me_cleaner tries to accomplish.
https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner
EDIT: Also, the ME is inside the PCH, so I'm not really sure why you're making a distinction there.
Because Intel makes it required, or is it technically required?
Just like the similar cores you see in pretty much every ARM SoC.
SoC power management, system bringup, and maintenance tasks are complicated enough these days to warrant a full small core tacked onto the side. These cores are necessary, and aren't going away. Complaining about them being there is just pissing into the wind. Complain about what they're used for and the closed source nature of their code.