People do run software with HyperThreading on and on E cores and with Turbo boost and throttling. Having code that behaves better in these dynamic, heterogeneous environments is a net benefit to the user.
In my experience (which is in video transcoding and in research astrophysics - both domains where it matters!), if you really need to squeeze out performance, you have to design with the target platform available for profiling and benchmarking from the beginning.
Edit to add: I agree wholeheartedly with your top-level comment! I just am perhaps more extreme than you; I don’t think “laptop benchmarks” can ever be twisted into being useful.
I know this is not how most cloud or consumer software works, but that stuff usually isnt as performance-sensitive.
in absolute terms testing is required on a standard config, but benchmarks should mostly be conducted with a minimum of external variants if you want to draw meaningful conclusions