No, I agree, the lower end models almost always had integrated graphics (13 inch MBP has had a few custom options) and were usually bought with base RAM, or bumped up slightly. They were relatively capable machines for their size, but there was the bit of Apple tax. And Intel's obsession with trying to make laptops set themselves on fire.
That being said, I'd argue that these aren't so much for the 2018-2020 Mac users. They're for guys like me, using older Macs or PCs and waiting to see what Apple could do with their own Mac CPU. For reference, 2014 Mac Mini, 8 GB RAM. It shouldn't be a contest for a M1 Mini.
Anecdotally, we've seen the shipping date for the new Macs collapse to near 2021 last I checked.
Also of interest was indeed Baldur's Gate 3 being shown off on them, and looking fairly smooth. Steam recommends 4 GB graphics card for min, 8 GB for recommended. (Geekbench is showing the M1 as clocking between a GeForce 1050 and a GeForce 1060 6 GB.)
Apple's going to crow about the M1, despite the limitations we saw, like only 2 Thunderbolt ports (MBA and MBP are also limited in that regards, but Apple loves slathering the back end of Minis with ports.), and 16 GB RAM. And I'd say that Apple is justified in crowing about it.
10 watt processors should not be clocking above 2020 i9s in single core, they shouldn't be just behind a 2013 Xeon in multi. Integrated graphics should be able to load the main menu of BG3, but that's it.
An M1 in an iMac or MacPro would be comical. But a M1X or M2 that fixes those flaws?