Apple selling you mid-range-3-year-old-intel CPUs (that are known to thermal throttle quite badly) at 50% markup, then robbing you slightly less hard on a product is not jaw dropping, it's merely you falling for their marketing three times in a row.
The i9-9980HK (released April 2019) in the 16" 2019 Macbook Pro looks like the highest-end mobile i9 Intel had released as of November 2019 when the laptop launched.
And the i7-9750H in the base model was also launched in April of that year, and looks like it was their 2nd-fastest mobile hexacore i7 at the time?
I don't think the GPU is much of an upgrade, but it does have tensor cores, the better video encoder (could be an OBS monster) and I believe better thermals. I am sure putting Pop!_OS or Manjaro on it would make this a great *nix platform for developers, content creators or streamers.
Trying to find a cheaper apple quality device that is as good... you'll really be limited to the cheaper Yoga 4k screen models and their ilk. But I have no experience with those devices.