I really don't think that is good enough reason to let an uncompetitive product line remain.
Yes there is. They do not build and sell the device, it's only sold then companies build systems around it. One will be skipped in favor of the other if the timeframes are too short. Intel has a lot of power but they are ultimately at the mercy of the companies as well.
And if one product generation is skipped in favor of the other then Intel has to think of the volume it'll be shipped and whether it makes sense at all for one generation to be in the market. It may make sense for Intel to lower their revenue a bit and sell the next gen notebook chip 6 month after the previous but they need to take into system builders and they will *not* see it the same way. If they do it it'll be "too bad so sad" and they'll lose.
I've read articles and references previously that Intel was pressured to release it a bit later because the vendors thought the duration was too short and that was for 12 months! In fact the 12 month period was said by Intel to be an optimal ratio between technological advances and revenue. <12 results in lower revenue because you didn't fully use the previous generation. >12 results in lower revenue because loss in competitiveness coupled with loss in interest. In fact nearly every tech industry from cars to phones to computers settled for the 12 month cadence.
Trust me on this. They can shorten it a bit for desktop chips with sockets and two generations(if you count one generation as an annual product) but you will not see that for laptops with
two thirds of the revenue and volume share.
*I also am not sure if you are referring to Meteor or Raptor when saying "not competitive device". I am assuming Raptorlake. Considering that Alderlake's battery life regression is likely unrelated to core uarch design but rather the platform/SoC, it's not implausible we'll see improvements in the Raptorlake generation. Highly doubt they'll greatly improve it but will be a welcome change if they go back to the Cometlake days.