There is a possible winning strategy in trying to cover bases Apple isn’t interested in. Apple has shown that they’ll make phones that seem to be successful to some degree (the mini) but just aren’t successful enough by whatever internal metric Apple is using. And there are some things they just don’t have right now like foldable phones.

(I’m aware of the rumors)

That doesn’t mean you can’t go overboard. I don’t know Samsung’s current lineup, but I think we’ve all seen PC manufacturers who make 75 different models that are all just ever so slightly different for seemingly no reason.