The problem I have with this is that the time when Intel - Intel god dammit, of all the companies! - could have made such excuses as "it's not an original design" and "well, what can we do with a backport" has long passed.
They have an army of engineers and all they can do between 2015 and 2021 is a bad backport of a part from 2019? Why even do it then? RKL's only potential reason to exist would be to be on par with Zen3 in <=8C parts. If it's not then why even launch it? A bigger die (lower margins, less dies on the market), less cores in the high end, higher power draw - and the result is more or less similar to what CML has been showing a year prior.
This is a fail on all fronts really. And seeing this I can't help but just assume that ADL and MTL will be the same - and nothing will really change up until Pat will clean the house and make a new CPU core from scratch. Which if they couldn't do a good backport in three years means what? 2030?
I dunno what Intel is doing but they need to seriously get their shit together.