Businesses tend to prefer paying through the nose when it makes sense to for the executives to pay themselves and their allies. The absolute lowest number on cost is zero. China's governing organising principle over the last two U. S. presidents sounds rational if you compare the imagery of Jan 6's q-anon-man to 89's tankman.
OpenStack, VMware and all the rest should go through a process that audits and certifies them like what is done to transport systems on and off the ground while not getting in the way of step level improvements introducing innovative new nicer things.
Are the incentive structures wrong in the middle layer between supply and demand? Typically, the hiring process is a bureaucratic PITA. In an ideal world the process is like Tesla's. One page. Three detail entry fields to fill. Reply in three days.
The money will go where the innovative flywheel is. Both ARM and Apple have indulged in expensive wall and glass architecture which is not core to their being in business. Apple has an open source page.
Ford or GM sell vehicles with engines taylored to customer needs. Given the volumes of chips Apple ships to the end customer, why can't they offer 6 kinds of chip architecture like the choice in colored metal finish? Why does it have to be one chip's ISA one generation at a time?