> you’re much more likely to just grab “the cheapest”.
And then realize there were better deals at the time and tarnish the brand.
Absolutely simplifying the lineup to four Macs was the best decision. Right now they have one more than they should - the MacPro and Mac Studio seem to clash a lot, especially since you can't use the PCIe slots of the Pro for GPUs. What do people put in those slots? I'd assume storage and fast networking.
I’d also imagine there’s firms using SDI video capture cards for on set/production purposes. Outside of local storage I also used to see Fibre channel HBAs and the like somewhat commonly on the older cheese grater (unsure how common that use case is now).
The current Mac Pro to my recollection is also readily available in a rack mount format, in and of itself that’s a solid reason for keeping it alive
The Mac Pro is expensive enough that it takes it solidly out of the "consumer" arena and puts it into commercial/business customers. Those customers will take the time to investigate and determine what they need for the job.
There have been times where the Mac Pro dipped into the high end consumer market explicitly, but we're not in one of those times now.
(Do note that some consumers WILL buy "commercial" products and Apple's obviously aware of that, but I suspect it's hard to get them to recommend the Mac Pro to home users.)
If instead they give you ten thousand combinations you’re much more likely to just grab “the cheapest”.