Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[HailMary]

from the multi-ton millstone around the neck of the poor souls
who have to design x86 chips to support *every* layer of x86
accretion all the way down to 16 bit segmented madness and
x87 stack stupidity. In the x86 world baggage is forever.

I'm not sure I agree here. I think we'll see compilers fading out support of old modes as chips do the same. If you need to compile a 16-bit app, use an old compiler.