I 100% believe it's the former, and it's not "moving away" present tense, it's "that train left the station already". Apple kept selling 27" Intel iMacs as current products right up till the day they launched the Mac Studio and Studio Display, and it seems obvious that the two events were linked - they feel Studio + Studio Display fills the high end 27" compact desktop niche in their product lineup, and Mini + Studio Display the low end.
Any time things like this change, you can find some people who are put out by it. But in the broader picture, I think it's the right move. 27" iMacs were always awkward products, IMO. It's not really great to bundle a high end display in with your high end desktop computer, lots of people prefer to source their own display and/or upgrade it on a different schedule than the computer. The main benefits were 2 less cables and slightly less desktop footprint, but the downside was that the product was not well adapted to the needs of the rest of the user base who don't care quite that much about an ultra-clean desktop.
Permit me to offer a different perspective. All of this discomfort (both here and at MR)—with Apple's RAM sizes, SSD sizes, and AIO's vs. separates—isn't about what Apple does and doesn't offer. Instead, it's fundmentally about cost. You can get both the 13" and 15" Airs with 24 GB/2TB, which is enough to cover most uses cases of that form factor (OK, maybe 32 GB would be nice). And you can get both the 14" and 16" MBPs with 128 GB/8TB. You just have to pay for it.
I'm not saying those cost concerns aren't legitimate. I'm saying we should recognize them for what they are.
[This is not necessarily the case with the Ultra Studio and MP—there you might actually need >192 GB RAM, or a more powerful GPU than what Apple offers; but if you want to stay in MacOS you don't have the option to get those.]
Likewise, I'd venture to say the overwhelming majority of those complaining about the lack of a 27" AS iMac aren't doing so because a Mini+ASD setup is unacceptable to them. [Indeed, I agree it's not great to bundle a display with a PC, since the former often has a longer life than the latter]
Rather, it's about cost. With the iMac, if you wanted a big, gorgeous screen (which most people would appreciate), yet didn't have heavy computing needs (also the case for most), you could get a 27" entry-level iMac (starting at $1,800). You can do that with the Mini + ASD, but the starting cost is significantly greater ($600 + $1600 = $2200). And I do think that is a legimitate complaint.
I think the real problem is that MacOS renders text differently from Windows, such that a Retina display really is needed for it to look good. And I say that as someone who is looking at a 27" Retina (218 ppi) side-by-side with a 27" 4k (163 ppi) and 24" WUXGA (94 ppi). The differences are clear.
Yet while Apple offers consumer-priced PC's, they don't offer consumer-priced Retina displays (something with a BOM and quality comparable to that in the 24" iMac). And no one else does either.
Asking a consumer who's spent, say, $800 on a 16GB/256GB Mini, or $1,200 on a 16GB/256GB M1 Air, to shell out $1,600 for an external display is a lot. And remember the number of consumers that buy machines in this price range is a lot more than the number that buy the higher-end devices, so this impacts a lot of their customers.
Thus Apple has created an OS that requires a Retina display to look its best, without providing a cost-reasonable (for Apple--I'm still thinking >=$800 ) way for consumer (as opposed to prosumer) purchasers to acquire a Retina external montior.
In summary, I think a separate 27" display + computer is a better solution than the iMac, but only if Apple makes that combo as cost-accessible to consumers as the 27" iMac, which they've not done
Anyway, that's my rant on this.
