Framework

You've explained why I'm intending to go 96GB on my Ryzen 9 FW16, assuming sufficient funds are available closer to Batch 5 shipping. My primary use for a laptop, any laptop (aside from the Macbook Air I have to do user support for macOS), is being able to serve as a viable "desktop substitute" whenever necessary. Clients aren't going to be happy waiting around on their projects with the excuse being "my desktop is non-functional" or because I needed to be away from my desk (but am otherwise able to get code/initial testing done). Though Cinnamon itself isn't especially resource heavy IntelliJ IDEs, VMware Workstation, browsers, et al can very quickly chew up resources - Especially for larger projects.

Assuming AMD doesn't massacre Threadripper non-Pro again, intentions are for my next desktop dev workstation to be a 24 or 32 core Threadripper (probably 8000 series).

Doing development in the "real world", especially for small businesses, is very different than it used to be or from doing undergrad college homework. Projects can get quite a bit more complex... Also data center resources aren't always available (or convenient to use) for interim "in-progress" testing. The fact that high end desktops with high CPU core counts/RAM are reasonably affordable combined with very capable laptops also being available is a win. Though I also have Raspberry Pis I use for testing/demo purposes on some smaller projects... In the past, before the advent of sanely priced workstations/high end laptops, either I or clients needed to maintain more data center resources... Spending a fortune to buy hardware up front and ongoing costs for DC rack space to put it in or by ringing up costs (by the hour) for cloud services. Now the investment is an "extra" few thousand dollars every few years (one time) for me to have higher tier workstation/laptop hardware running all the initial dev/testing... Saving data center resources/expenses for final staging/testing and production.