The 8cx Gen 3 was only released like one or two years ago, and is fast enough for day to day use. Sure the new ones are a fair bit faster, but the old ones were more than fast enough for web browsing, light programming, and running emulators. Heck they are also fast enough for server use if you need a power efficient cheap home server. They did make a couple desktop versions after all.
We have one at work for testing purposes. I agree it’s fine, but it’s competing with low end x86 devices performance-wise. I really wanted them to be better because I wanted to use one for my daily work, but it just wasn’t enough at the time. These new snapdragon elite processors seem like they could make that a reality though, and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a snapdragon x elite laptop based on my prior bad experiences.