Maybe this is fundamental and unavoidable, maybe some systematic bias
in human thinking drives us towards simple software and complex
hardware.

Is there an alternative future, where we went with Itanium? Where we
have simple hardware and an increasingly complex compiler and
increasingly complex runtime making sure the program runs fast on that
simple hardware?
Instead we have two guys in tel aviv waking up in night terror every
night over confusion why does x86 run any code at all, how come it
works. And I'm at home 'hehe new intc make program go fast:)))'

Now that we have comparatively simple compilers and often no runtime
at all, the hardware has to optimise the shitty program for us, but as
we don't get to see how the sausage is made, we think it's probably
something that is well done, robust and correct. If we'd do this in
software, we'd all have to suffer how fragile the compiler and runtime
are and how unapproachable they are.

• The target market is folk currently coding for x86 CPU's to run as NPU's.

• No one is about to run 100Gbps backbones on a PCI card. But hey, the world does surprise :-).

• Writing code for forwarding traffic as well as control plane protocols is not easy. Buying a finished product from an equipment vendor will be the low-hanging fruit for most of the landscape.
  

It potentially also has the positive side effect of getting Broadcom to raise their game, which would make them a more viable option for operators with significant high-touch requirements.

As we used to say in Vladivostok, "It could be a win win" :-).