Same here with 150k+. Not using it, certainly never asked for it.

Same with all the vPro stuff (which is kinda related but not completely).

We do use Windows autopilot though but that doesn't depend on IME.

Back when I worked on the sysadmin side of things we used vPro for out of band management of servers in our datacenters, but we never used it for our 10k+ laptops and desktops.

Yeah exactly. We used Dell iDRAC remote management cards and HP ILO for that mostly. We still use the latter on the few servers we have left (which is very very few). But on laptops/desktops never.

That still doesn't really give it any reason to have it in workstation chips, in Xeons perhaps...

If you're using Intel architecture, it needs at least some SMM: it is used on startup (initial hardware configuration) and often during power management events (CPU clock scaling, hibernation, etc). The article mentions that they disable most but not all of SMM, for those reasons.

It gives you OOB management on every endpoint. These days I think it is less useful (I like autopilot/intune) but for some field devices it is nice to solve boot loop scenarios or similar bare metal problems over the internet instead of making a dude drive for 6 hours to BFE to find out why your doodad has ghosted.