x86 is a free/open isa. The patents are expired up to i486 and x86_64 patents should expire soon. A guy from Oracle not too long ago implement i186 in Verilog as a hobby project. At least we know that if Intel ever gets too authoritarian, we can do that for i386.
Absolutely. Today, it's not about performance, but about performance/watt. Simply using a web browser is a huge power drain.
Even if that wasn't the case, getting rid of the "Intel dependency" and the "x86 premium" would make sense from a business standpoint.