Yes, but the amount of people who need an M1 Pro but then also pick 16 GiB RAM is… slim, I imagine.
I'd be absolutely shocked if the M1 Pro with 16 GB is NOT the best selling 14" MacBook Pro.
At this point, you probably shouldn't get a Mac with 8 if you can avoid it. Wouldn't be shocked if the M3 Air doesn't have that option any more.
The 8 GB MacBook Air is probably the best selling MacBook Air too. And you know what? It runs macOS just fine, for light to moderate business app type usage and student/teacher type usage too.
We currently have 5 Monterey Macs in the house:
24 GB iMac 2017 (mine)
16 GB MacBook 2017 (mine)
8 GB Mac mini 2014 (mine)
8 GB 13" MacBook Pro 2015 (daughter's)
8 GB 13" MacBook Air 2017 (wife's)
For my wife and daughter, they basically NEVER stress out their 8 GB machines. For my 8 GB Mac mini running business applications and multitasking, usually it's fine, but occasionally it can lag a bit. A lot of it has to do with the CPU of course, but I sometimes get a couple of GB of swap too if more heavily multitasking. Nothing major, but it can be noticed.
BTW, my Mac mini is the machine I use the most, as it is my work machine. That is the one I'd replace with an M2 or M2 Pro Mac mini. For my business applications and multitasking a 16 GB M2 would be fine, but it will likely end up replacing my 2017 iMac as well (once that loses official macOS support), so I'm eyeing a 24 GB M2 or M2 Pro. (I wouldn't pay for 32 GB in a Mac mini though.)
They haven't been that worried about one product of theirs cannibalizing another, and they seem to like filling entire gradients of product lines.
Yes, and if you take out the Intel Mac mini, there is a huge gap between the Mac mini and Mac Studio right now.
Basically, what would make sense to fill in the gap would be to replace the Intel Mac mini with an M2 Pro Mac mini. To keep costs down (eg. US$200 premium over M2), they could even use a binned variant of M2 Pro, with fewer CPU cores or fewer GPU cores or both.
Will they do this? I dunno. It's up to them to decide if it makes sense from a marketing point of view, but purely from a spec and pricing point of view, an M2 Pro Mac mini makes sense.