So far we're seeing two differentiators. One is the use of the 7-GPU bin to hit the bottom-of-the-range price point for each product family. The other is simply the different thermal characteristics of different products - the passively cooled Air & iPad Pro will thermally throttle earlier than the actively cooled MBP, iMac & mini.
The products aren't being differentiated in silicon, they're being differentiated in feature & format. My mother can tell me the difference between an iPad and a macbook without describing anything that she can't see with her own eyes.
The M1 in the macbook pro is actively cooled, and does not throttle.
When additional cooling is applied after-market to the macbook air, it has the same performance characteristics as the macbook pro.
The M1 is the same in both products. It throttles when hotter. It's more likely to throttle if not actively cooled and under heavy workload. It's not clocked differently. There's no artificial constraints.
Why does Apple put different amount of cores and clocks into different products if the choice doesn't matter? It seems like there are performance differences there if they choose to install differently configured SoCs in different devices and even split them by pricing on the iMac.
So, please, explain where's this big difference? (With more than a single sentence of your words if possible.)