> shareholders should be asking serious questions about why they've nothing significant to show for all that time and money spent when they were raking it in without a serious competitor.

This might be the answer. No competition and a good cash flow is a comfortable position. You defend this model with ads, policy, etc. and technical innovation can languish. I am not saying this is necessarily the case, but it is possible that Intel just got comfortable, slow and fat. Having a scrappy, smart competitor can be a good thing.