No one else is selling laptops period that can match the M1 Pro in performance and efficiency. Much less the M1 Max.

Agreed, but who will better take advantage of the CPI's architecture to utilize those gains, the same people making the hardware and native OS, or a Linux distro? Just because a CPU can do something does not mean every OS / kernel is going to use it.

What I was getting at is if you want Linux, you can get a good Lenovo or Dell for about $1000-1200 that would seem / feel compararble to a $2000 macbook.

Some people just want Linux. Running it on Apple silicon (that is, aarch64) is exactly what they want–performance wise, it'll run circles around anything else in that price race.