Yeah, 8051 wins, it was and still is in everything (sdcards, sim cards, cables, ports...). I may have some trauma from spending too much time with Keil's 8051 C compiler that made me forget it.

But I still think 68k was king of that era for discrete CPU's that could go anywhere, and run a high level OS/complex software, before the MCU and then SoC era came and stole m68k's crown.

Sure, PPC took the m68k's role of discrete CPU in automotive, aerospace, networking and consoles for a while, but I don't think it is the king.

Back to TFA, I think the m68k got a bit more than just "commercial traction"! Which is why it will hopefully stay in the kernel for a long time.

The 65xx series outsold the 68k by several magnitudes. One might argue about how complex OS's it could run, but e.g. GEOS shows 65xx based designs could go quite far.