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CPUs that run Linux, Wifi chips supporting recent standards, etc.? Rare.

Intel was relatively open with its documentation (including reference schematics -- I think you can still find the 440BX ones on their site somewhere) until around the end of the P4 era, so that covers "CPUs that run Linux". As for the wireless stuff, I suspect a lot of that has to do with regulatory issues.

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I mean, sure, for certain x86 things... like 20 years ago, but IIRC their host controllers were not though, and that isn't but a fraction of all CPUs.

Think about how many billions of devices there are where you can't get simple a pinout diagram for the main CPU. I would argue only a tiny, TINY, percentage of any Linux devices actually have CPUs/SOCs/SOMs with sufficient documentation to look at from a hardware design standpoint.

StrongARM and followon ARM CPUs from Intel had good documentation too.

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