The 90s were easy mode for semiconductor manufacturers because of Moore's law, and because cranking the clocks was relatively easy. After 2000 was when the really advanced microarchitectures started coming out.

>a company that's struggling, but to a healthy market where the consumer benefits

I would argue that the market is only marginally healthier than, say, 2018. Intel is absolutely struggling. The 13th and 14th generation were marred by degradation issues and the 15th generation is just "eh", with no real reason to pick it over Zen. The tables have simply flipped compared to seven years ago; AMD at least is not forcing consumers to change motherboards every two years.

And Intel doesn't even seem to care too much that they're losing relevance. One thing they could do is enable ECC on consumer chips like AMD did for the entire Ryzen lineup, but instead they prefer to keep their shitty market segmentation. Granted, I don't think it would move too many units, but it would at least be a sign of good will to enthusiasts.