If I understand you correctly it means the primary use case is security applications that need transparency at all levels on a system that is roughly equivalent to mainstream platform performance features. Is that accurate?
Back in the 90s and early 2000s, there were several non-x86 architectures that were more powerful, and even 64 bit long before Intel ever did. The DEC alpha, SPARC, and others. I was also too poor to afford those back then but I remember them fondly.
At some point I was reading e-mail on a 64-bit SGI machine while we waited for the Dell the company ordered for me to arrive.
The day it came in was one of the saddest days of my life.