I struggle to understand how people can still buy an imac,
Because
if you want/need a powerful desktop Mac it's currently Apple's most credible offering. The mini is knobbled by a mediocre integrated GPU (or an expensive, bulky external GPU with a laundry list of compatibility caveats) and the Pro is out of the question unless you have a business case for a $20k computer.
If Apple made a credible mid-range tower - or if I was switching to Windows - I wouldn't get an all-in-one even if it had nice thin bezels. However, if you do want an all-in-one, the iMac is the one Apple computer that makes the PC equivalents look under-specced and over-priced.
Like many have said, especially with the iMac, there's no point buying a new device when it looks like the one all the way from 2012.
Looks aren't everything (bezels even less so) , and the 2020 5k iMac is a
lot more powerful than the 2012 version.
The only thing that
needs changing with the iMac (apart from things which ain't gonna happen like expandable internal SSD) is the stand.
Maybe this has been answered before, but what is the future of virtualization OS programs such as Parallels, VMWare Fusion, or even Boot Camp for Windows users?
Apple have said that they won't support "direct booting of alternative OSs" => BootCamp is dead and even if Apple don't specifically lock it down, third-party dual boot solutions will be... challenging without Apple support in terms of firmware and drivers, since it looks like most functions will depend on proprietary Apple Silicon hardware.
Apple have
shown Parallels virtualising Linux on Apple Silicon - but note that is
Linux for ARM and not x86 Linux. Still, Linux for ARM is already pretty well supported and will be seriously useful.
Running Windows 10
for ARM on a virtual machine under Parallels (or similar) is mainly a licensing issue (the virtual machine can emulate Windows-compatible hardware and firmware etc. if necessary) - there's not currently a generic retail version of Win10 for ARM - and is likely to happen unless MS and Apple get into some silly political row. But, again, that's Windows for ARM which - although it includes its own x86 emulator/translator for Win32 binaries - isn't currently taking the Windows world by storm.
Running actual x86 Windows (or Linux) will require full emulation of an x86 system - and is unlikely to give good performance. However, emulation/translation technology has moved on since the bad old days of SoftWindows etc. on PPC so it might be a viable solution for running non-demanding software. Since there's an open-source emulator (QEMU) that already runs on both ARM Linux and x86 MacOS, and even a
project based on that for iOS (even though it can't be distributed through the App Store) it's pretty likely that an open source emulation solution will turn up on ASi MacOS. It's also conceivable that a Major Maker of Mac Virtualisation Software could add x86 emulation to their virtualisation product, since there would be a lot of shared functionality.
I think it is also possible that someone will offer a Windows-in-the-cloud service that you access via remote desktop. That is already a "thing" (but mainly priced & targeted at corporate customers) so it's really a case of someone offering it in a consumer-friendly package.
Another possibility some have suggested is that WINE/Crossover
might be made to work with Rosetta (I have no idea if that is feasible).
Overall, though, if a major part of your workflow relies on running x86 Windows software
efficiently, I'd start thinking about PCs.